1. “The Integration of
Theology of the Body and FertilityCare”
TOBET Talk for
AAFCP
Copyright 2017 Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum tobet.org
Miss Ashour has listed no financial interest/arrangement that would be considered a conflict of interest.

2. Faculty Disclosure: Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum
has listed an affiliation with:
Grant/Research Support-Johnson & Johnson, Hospira
Consultant-Aventis, Wyeth, Scios
Speaker’s Bureau-Aventis, Wyeth, Scios, GlasoSmithKline;
however, no conflict of interest exists for this conference.
We are praying for you! Let’s end with a prayer: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.” 
Mother Mary and Saint Pope John Paul, pray for us!

4. Main Points
TOB: “Total Vision of Man” linked to HV and Quick Overview of TOB
FertilityCare:
Objective Truth AND Personal Experience
3. FertilityCare:
Submission VS. Detachment
4. The Finale!! Your amazing work! Perhaps much more than you realize.

5. Main Points
TOB: “Total Vision of Man” linked to HV and Quick Overview of TOB
FertilityCare:
Objective Truth AND Personal Experience
3. FertilityCare:
Submission VS. Detachment
4. The Finale!! Your amazing work! Perhaps much more than you realize.

6. Humanae Vitae #7
“It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered….”

7. Theology of the Body is…
A total vision of man!

13. We might ask ourselves why we believe the things we do about love
We might ask ourselves why we believe the things we do about love. Why do we think that love puts
the other first, is given freely and completely, etc.? As believers, we find the answer in the nature of God. The Mystery of the Trinity—that God is three distinct Persons who give the gift of self to each other from all eternity— is the blueprint of all love. Love as the gift of self is represented
in this book by arrows of reciprocal giving and receiving, which is always open to another. In this diagram, the Father and Son give the gift of self to each other, and the Holy Spirit, Who always existed, is the “fruit” or bond of their union.
THIS IS THE BLUEPRINT, THE BRANDING, THE STAMP
OF EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS!
The Gift of Self for Fruitful Communion

15.  ALL GOOD RELATIONSHIPS REFLECT GOD’S ETERNAL NATURE (note capital letters)
THE TRINITY
A Person-to-Person,
indissoluble relationship of love
for fruitful communion.
MARRIAGE
A person-to-person,
CHRISTIANITY
A Person-to-person,
Marriage takes its form from God’s inner life. We are made in God’s image and likeness.
We might notice that even the words, husband and wife, are directed toward the other.
There can’t be a husband without a wife. This shows life-long belonging.

21. Main Points
TOB: “Total Vision of Man” linked to HV and Quick Overview of TOB
FertilityCare:
Objective Truth AND Personal Experience
3. FertilityCare:
Submission VS. Detachment
4. The Finale!! The ultimate reason you are doing what you are doing!

23. John Paul II’s TOB
“I do not intend to present a commentary on the whole encyclical, but rather to explain one passage at greater depth…a central passage of the encyclical.” (TOB 118:3)

24. The Central Passage:
HUMANAE VITAE 12

25. TOB 118:5
“The encyclical does not merely recall this norm, but also tries to deepen its adequate foundation. In order to clarify more deeply that ‘…inseparable connection willed by God…between the two meanings of the conjugal act,’ Paul VI writes in the sentence after this as follows: ‘By its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to the laws inscribed in their very being of man and of woman’ (HV 12).” (Quoted in TOB 118:5)

26. Conjugal Love
Objective Truth (“intimate structure”) Personal Experience (“meanings”)

27. The Language of the Body
“Nothing else is at stake here than reading the ‘language of the body’ in the truth, as has been said several times in the earlier biblical analyses. The moral norm, constantly taught by the Church in this sphere, recalled and reconfirmed by Paul VI in his encyclical, springs from the reading of the ‘language of the body’ in the truth” (TOB 118:6).

28. Objective Truth God’s law: the way God designed things
Based on the “re-reading of the language of the body spoken in truth”

29. I’M MARRIED TO YOU
& LET’S HAVE KIDS!

31. HV 9
Exclusive—you vowed to take this man, this woman. Unity of marriage is based on this exclusivity. (like in vitro goes against that) unity of marriage
Fidelity---til death, faithful (adultery is infidelity) indissolubility

32. Some say, “Why doesn’t the Church get out of our bedroom
Some say, “Why doesn’t the Church get out of our bedroom! Our sex life is our own. We can do whatever we want with our bodies—it’s our choice!” It is true—we can do what we want, but Pope John Paul’s theology of the body is his invitation for us to take a look at the truth and meaning of sex and the body so as to experience deep, abiding love.
We said earlier that a smile has its own meaning, as does gazing into each other’s eyes. Sex, too, has its own meaning: “I’m married to you, and I’m ready to form a family with you.” The Church does not want the most intimate act between two humans to be emptied of its deep meaning, no more than She would want the Eucharist to be emptied of its deep meaning.
The Church’s teachings are like a beautiful mosaic. If we begin to disregard a teaching here, a teaching there, one piece at a time, then the entire “artwork” of Christianity’s call to love is tarnished. Please be open-minded about this and discuss it seriously with your beloved, for the mosaic is all about love. Sexual integrity also forms a mosaic of your own family life, affecting every aspect.

33. Based on the “re-reading of the language of the body spoken in truth”
Personal Experience The Subjective and Psychological Dimension of the Acting Persons
Based on the “re-reading of the language of the body spoken in truth”

39. It’s Possible!
“‘We believe that the human beings of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle’ (HV 12)” (TOB 119:1).
Reasonable character includes the objective dimension and the subjective and psychological dimension.

40. Main Points
TOB: “Total Vision of Man” linked to HV and Quick Overview of TOB
FertilityCare:
Objective Truth AND Personal Experience
3. FertilityCare:
Submission VS. Detachment
4. The Finale!! Your amazing work! Perhaps much more than you realize.

48. To Love or To Use
“The transposition of ‘artificial means,’ by contrast, breaks the constitutive dimension of the person, deprives man of the subjectivity proper to him, and turns him into an object of manipulation.” (TOB 123: 1).

51. True Humanism: SUBMITTING to “re-reading the language of the body spoken in truth”

55. A woman’s fertility is…

56. Ongoing, deeper discovery of the whole person.

62. Last thoughts…

69. Couples place their love at the service of life. Transmission of life…
Couples place their love at the service of life. Transmission of life….two meanings of this one act of sex. Love and procreation. Open in each and every act is to place their love at the service of the transmission of life. Good of the relationship, family, and society.

72. Pope John Paul says that Jesus’ words are not words of condemnation but of invitation, an invitation to an experience of lasting love and fidelity in marriage, open to the richness of offspring.
Natural Family Planning is based on a modern technology of science called NaPro Technology, Natural Procreative Technology. Such science helps couples who are infertile to conceive. It also gives concrete instructions regarding the signs of the woman’s fertility so that couples who discern they need to limit their family size are aware of the proper times of abstinence and of union. This keeps the integrity of the truth of the body and the person intact, though it demands self-mastery, especially from the husband.
Please notice that the chart of NFP vs. ABC is not based on the Bible or Church teaching but on typical human considerations. Even the Language of the Body chart focuses on the natural law of what the body says. In other words, this teaching is not a “Catholic hangup,” as some like to say. It is for everyone, for everyone longs for true love.

73. HV 14.3

74. Domination or Self-Mastery?
“The problem lies in maintaining the adequate relationship between that which is defined as ‘domination…of the forces of nature’ (HV 2) and “self-mastery” (HV 21), which is indispensable for the human person.” (TOB 123:1)

75. HV 17.3 “Therefore, if we do not want the mission of procreating human life to be conceded to the arbitrary decisions of Man, we need to recognize that there are some limits to the power of Man over his own body and over the natural operations of the body, which ought not be transgressed.”

76. HV 10. 4-6 ”Responsible Parenthood” Serious reasons
HV ”Responsible Parenthood” Serious reasons. Serious is the real translation. They take into account these 4 things.
Economic—not just desperate; cannot give everyone a laundry list of why postpone or why achieve. Only keep baby at work for a year, mom taking the baby…plan for a new baby, plan beyond just having the baby...daycare...I will die and she will die. Then, is it right time to have a baby. Further on down, not just immediate needs. Car, boat, etc, not divided income by 3, enough trouble. I have 4 current children, health---can’t die, etc, uterus so thin I can die. Church is talking to a human person—reason—think through something with the virtue of prudence—help look through past, present, and the future....this would be a good time or no. God decides without us—providentialist. Goes against freedom. Conceptual knowledge is different from animal

77. Main Points
TOB: “Total Vision of Man” linked to HV and Quick Overview of TOB
FertilityCare:
Objective Truth AND Personal Experience
3. FertilityCare:
Submission VS. Detachment
4. The Finale!! Your amazing work! Perhaps much more than you realize.

78. DOCTORS AND HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
YOU—
FERTILITY CARE
PRACTIONERS!
Keep it up!
HV 27 The Pope is relying on you!

79. Fertility Practitioners are EVANGELISTS!
“The theology of the body is not merely a theory, but rather a specific evangelical Christian pedogogy of the body” (TOB 122:4).

80. HV 14.1 “First principles of human and Christian doctrine concerning marriage”

81. HV 14.1 A TOB way of explicitly showing: “First principles of human and Christian doctrine concerning marriage”

83. Your work fosters a “space” to experience Love!
A true encounter body-to-body, thus, person-to-person!

87. HV 30 “Once the plan of God ‘conceived’ for the world is faithfully kept…peace.”

92. SAY “YES” TO THE BODY

93. We are praying for you! Let’s end with a prayer: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.” 
Mother Mary and Saint Pope John Paul, pray for us!