My husband and I used contraceptives the first ten years of our marriage. Once we began using Natural Family Planning, I knew this was God’s plan for our marriage. I felt guilty, and sorry for my past choices. I realized I needed healing and forgiveness. The following prayer and information has helped me and others with this healing process. I hope this will be of assistance to you.
Prayer for
Someone using Contraception
Dear God, I want to do Your will. Help me to listen to Your Son’s voice through the teachings of the Church. Help me, not to settle for less. Help me, to put forth the effort that is needed, to follow Your way and reap Your abundant life here on earth. Help me to accept the truth of the Church’s teaching against contraception and sterilization.1 Give me the grace to follow it in obedience. Send me and my spouse someone who can aid and encourage us in following Your way. Help us never to bend in the face of fear, but live in complete trust that You WILL provide, as we grow in self control, and surrender to Your Lordship in all areas of our life.
“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful;
yet to those trained by it afterwards it yields
the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
Hebrews 12:11
Prayer for
Someone that has used Contraception
and/or chose Sterilization
Dear God, I can’t change the past. It’s hard to believe or even admit that I’ve made a mistake. Please, give me the humility to think clearly and give me the grace and the faith to recognize my weaknesses and faults. Help me to forgive myself and my spouse. Help me to accept full responsibility for my decisions and not blame the church or others. Help me to confess my faults and once again turn my life over to You and rely upon Your mercy.
Romans 8:28 says:
“We know that God makes all things work together for the good
of those who have been called according to his decree."
Bring good out of my past mistakes. Help me in some way, at least for my children’s sake, promote the truth of Natural Family Planning. If I find myself slipping back into justifying or rationalizing my past behavior to the point of remaining silent, condoning or even encouraging contraceptives or sterilization, please help me. Give me boldness to speak in love and gentleness to those that are verbalizing criticism and dissent from the Church’s teaching. Please, give me the grace to frequent the Sacraments of Confession and Eucharist.
Thank you, Lord, for being faithful to the Church, and for guiding her in the fullness of truth. Help us to pray for our Holy Father, the Pope, and all priests, deacons and ministers of our Holy Catholic Faith. You said to the disciples, “He who hears you hears Me and he who rejects you rejects Me.” Luke 10:16 God forbid that I exert my independence from the voice of Christ by rejecting the teaching Magisterium of the Church. Keep me faithful. Amen
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Note: If you are using contraceptives and find it difficult to stop, PRAY the rosary and go to Confession. Pray for the grace of obedience, study the Scriptures and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Attend a Natural Family Class and begin using Natural Family Planning as soon as possible.
If you have been sterilized, go to Confession. I encourage you to set aside, by mutual agreement, some time each month to fast from sexual intercourse. Use this time to pray in reparation for past behavior. Use this time to grow in the gift of self control. It will bless your marriage.
“Do not deprive one another, unless perhaps by mutual consent
for a time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then return to one another,
that Satan may not tempt you through lack of self control.”
1 Corinthians 7:15
It is possible, through the use of some forms of contraception like the pill, IUD, Norplant, RU 486 and others that a child might have been aborted. Please, go to Confession and have a Mass said for any children that might have been unknowingly aborted. Forgive yourself, accept God’s forgiveness, and thank God for His mercy and redemption.
“If My people, upon whom My name has been pronounced,
humble themselves and pray and seek my presence and
turn from evil ways I will hear them from heaven and
pardon their sins and revive the land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14
Written by Arlene
Permission granted to reproduce and distribute.
References: 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2370)
For more information about learning Natural Family Planning, please contact our National office. They will direct you to the closest teaching couple. 1-513-471-2000 Fax # 1-513-557-2449
Published by CCL Chapter #479 of Galveston and Houston with approval of
Mark Hayden, National Field Director of Couple to Couple League, P.O. Box 111184, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211-1184
Local Address: 12627 West Bellfort, Sugar Land, TX 77478