J.M J.

CONTRACEPTION CONDEMNED IN SACRED SCRIPTURE by Dennis Schira

We’ve had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence – St. Catherine of Sienna

Could there have been any other time in human history when the world was so full of selfishness, Godlessness and moral outrage, as at the beginning of the third millennium A.D? Biblical evidence indicates that there was in fact one – the time of Noah and the great flood. Indeed, Jesus has forewarned us that the last days would be like the days of Noah (Matt.24:37). This being so, surely we need to take heed of what separated the tiny remnant on the ark from the multitude who perished, since neither God’s Truth nor fallen human nature have changed.

Noah “was a just and perfect man…he walked with God” (Gen.6:9), whereas regarding others, God saw “that the wickedness of men was great…and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times (Gen. 6:5). As it was then, so it is today: the vast majority feel free to accept or reject God’s Word according to whether or not it fits comfortably into their lives. “They receive not the love of the truth, that they may be saved” (2 Thes.2:10).

Drawing upon Sacred Scripture, we will now proceed to demonstrate that the depth of Godlessness and decadence to which our present age has descended can reasonably be attributed primarily, if not solely, to one tragic fact – the contraceptive mentality, resulting in the mortal sin of contraception – which Sacred Scripture declares is “a detestable thing,” and which leads to a host of other evils. Why? Simply stated, God is Life, and to cut off life is to cut off God. “There is a way which seemeth just to a man: but the ends thereof lead to death” (Prov.14:12). No other creature of God, even the angels, has been endowed with the awesome privilege of cooperating with Him in the creation of an immortal soul!!

The first scriptural proof of God’s hatred and swift condemnation of deliberate opposition to His Will relative to procreation is the case of Onan (Gen.38:9). Onan “went into his [deceased] brother’s wife; spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born…And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing.” “Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7).

Centuries later, our Lord again makes known his abhorrence of the contraceptive mentality. In the sixth chapter of Tobias, we are told that the Archangel Raphael, who was in the form of a man, accompanied young Tobias on a journey. He tells Tobias that he is to ask for the hand of a beautiful young woman named Sara. Tobias becomes afraid because he has heard that Sara has been married seven times; every time on her wedding night each husband was killed by a devil. Raphael then says to him: “Hear me and I will show you who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.” He then instructs Tobias to “…take the virgin [his wife] with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust: that in the seed of Abraham thou mayest obtain a blessing in children.”

Regarding this example, who could imagine God making His Will known with greater clarity and absoluteness? The point is driven home sevenfold (the biblical number of perfection), sealed with the infallible word of an Archangel, and set in Sacred Scripture as a lasting example for mankind until the end of time. “For I am the Lord, and I change not” (Mal. 3:6).

It should be obvious that this supplanting of the Will of God with one’s own will now prevails in our society; Sister Lucy of Fatima called it “diabolical disorientation.” “The shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside in their own way, everyone after his own gain from the first even to the last” (Isaiah 56:11). Present day contracepting couples who seek a blessing on their error, are in fact seeking leadership from the blind, of whom Jesus has spoken: “Let them alone; they are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit” (Matt.15:14). Surely, sackcloth and ashes are our only remedy!

As quoted by His Holiness, Pope Pius XI, in Casti Connubii, St. Augustine asserted, “Intercourse even with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of offspring is prevented.” Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him.

“Christ is the Truth (1John 5:6)…Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever” (Heb.13:8). Therefore, anything at variance with the perennial and unchangeable truths taught by Jesus Christ through His Church, notwithstanding its source, is from “the devil…truth is not in him…for he is a liar”(John 8:44). From the time of Onan to Tobias, to the early Church Fathers, and to Pope Pius XI’s great encyclical Casti Connubii, the unalterable truth revealed by our Lord through His Church is that procreation is God’s domain. St. Catherine of Siena was a stigmatist, a prophet, a Doctor of the Church, and one of the Church’s greatest mystics. She and her twin sister were the last of twenty-five children born to her parents.

We must trust in Divine Providence: “And He said to them: ‘where is your faith’” (Luke 8:25). He will not give anyone more than he can handle. To husbands worried about finances, He says, “For your Father knoweth what you stand in need of, before you ask Him” (Matt.:8). To wives who would place a career ahead of unwavering openness to new life, He says: “The woman…shall be saved by bearing children” (1Tim.2:15). Married couples who would follow God’s Will must cast off self will, and courageously face the terrible truth that if they sever life, they sever themselves from God. Unless they repent and restore unconditional acceptance of (or complete surrender to) the Will of the Author of Life, they are severed from the True Vine, and will bear no fruit: they will wither and shall be gathered up, and cast into the fire (John 15:5-6).

“For this is the charity of God that we keep His Commandments: and His Commandments are not heavy” (1 John 5:3). “If you keep My Commandments, you will remain in My love….these things I have spoken to you: that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled” (John15:10-11).

I would be remiss in concluding this article without attempting to shed light on what might well be called the serpent’s trump card: satan seduces Catholics into believing the horrendous lie that they can disregard certain duties and commands of God by the substitution of a devotion or additional prayers. Surely, this cunning delusion is preventing the restoration of Truth, and incurs the wrath of God! If a man could save another man’s life, but instead turned away to pray a Rosary, he would surely be guilty of grave negligence. In like manner, all are grievously mistaken who believe that by occasionally attending an extra Mass, or by praying extra Rosaries, they are excused from avoiding contraception – or other grave obligations such as teaching their children the faith and moral doctrines of the Church, or from shielding their children from soul-destroying sex-education courses. “It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fall” (Luke 16:17).

The hour is late; the darkness has all but obscured reality. Nevertheless, our Saviour makes available a Life-Saver. The Apparitions of our Lady at Fatima were accompanied by miracles unprecedented since the dawn of Christianity. Jesus sent His own Mother, the Ocean Star, to guide those who seek the Light back to the ‘Ark of Salvation’– the Catholic Church. Our Lady of Fatima repeatedly offered her key remedy: “People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it everyday….Pray! Pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell for not having someone to pray and make sacrifices for them.”

She also made the astounding statement: “Only I can help you!” Why did she say that? Because it has been in God’s design from all eternity that she will crush the serpent’s head Gen. 3:15). Those who would “become as little children” (Matt.18:3), who would obey the Commandment against contraception revealed by Almighty God in Sacred Scripture, would teach their children the truths embodied in the doctrines of faith and morals of the Church, and who would obey our Heavenly Mother’s request to pray and make many sacrifices for sinners, will ensure the protection for themselves, their children and others from the seductive power of satan, in their pursuit of eternal happiness and joy in Heaven. “For my yoke is sweet and my burden light” (Matt. 11:30).