The Dignity of Our Fertility
The flies in South Carolina are out of control. Out. Of. Control. We recently bought those fly bag traps—they work like a charm—except they smell like dead fish. Not kidding. Mia asked me the other day if God was sending a plague. The smell of death with an infestation of flies does seem suspicious…
On that note, remember when God sent 10 plagues to Egypt to show the Pharaoh who's boss? That was some pretty gnarly stuff. If I was the Pharaoh, I wouldn't have made it past the locusts. But really, ever wonder what the deal was with the plagues? It's a timely conversation, especially with this Sunday's reading. (I hope your priest treats you to the longer version. If not, crack open your Bibles and take a look at what you missed, Matthew 13: 24-43)
The truth is, God hates punishing us, and the consequence we face for choosing something other than Him is never arbitrary. The plagues were used by God to show the Egyptians, and the Israelites, that there is only one God, as He told Moses—"I AM WHO I AM."
God slayed Hapi, the Egyptian god of the Nile, when He turned its water into blood. He infested the land with armies of frogs, taking control from Hekhet, the frog goddess of fertility; heaps of dead frogs showed her to be powerless. He slayed the cattle they worshipped and infested the blessing of their land with flies. And, in the most dramatic showing, God made it known that the Pharaoh, worshipped as a god himself, had no power when he couldn't save his own son. The battle between the God of the slaves and the gods of the Egyptians reached the Red Sea, where the omnipotence of the Lord washed the wheat from the chaff.
The reality is when we choose to worship idols over God, He will invite us back to His heart over and over, and over again. He will fight for us. But, when we continue to hurt ourselves by cutting ourselves off from the source of all truth, goodness, beauty, and eternal love by worshipping idols, He will separate the wheat from the chaff, and there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Why are you talking about idol worship, Kelly? We don't worship cattle or Hekhet, the frog fertility goddess, here… Correct. We don't. In today's culture, we are taught to worship ourselves.
We have taken the words from the mouth of our Lord and proudly proclaimed, "I am" from our own. "I am who I say I am"—the gender I choose, the sexuality I choose, the mom I choose, the dad I choose. I say what the family looks like, I say when my child lives and dies, I say where human life is created—a womb or a test tube, I say what truth is.
At this point, a frog goddess sounds less diabolical.
For the past few weeks, we have been talking about the domestic church, the gift of family life as the place where God desires us to guard, communicate, and reveal His love. HERE is where we grow wheat or weeds… If you recall, St. Lucia shared the words of our Lady warning us that the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and family.
It is certainly looking that way.
As we step into NFP Awareness week, take time to intentionally meditate over the beauty of God's design for love and life; especially as it pertains to the places where the evil one is sowing his lies and where we have more than dipped our toe into idol worship.
Mediate over the dignity of our fertility; we have been invited to be co-creators of new life with God! Imagine being invited to participate in the Divine Life and creative work of the almighty God and saying, “naaa, I think I have a better way” ?! Disobeying our loving Father always sounds pretty daft in hindsight — but in the moment, Satan is a deceiver. He tempts us to justify, rationalize, and consent to idolatry of self then welcomes us into the fiery furnace of eternity.
As parents, it is your job to fight this spiritual battle with God's perfect truth. Share with your children how wonderfully they have been created and that, as bodily creatures, they are invited to share in God's free, total, faithful, and fruitful love. Teach them the gift of sacramental marriage, the genius of their gender, that their body has a language that reveals the Divine, and that they are fiercely loved by the God who knows every hair on their head.
Teach them who and whose they are and let them proclaim from the depths of their heart the only “I am” statement with power. "I am a child of God.”
Download this week’s Pray, Grow, and Serve Devotional!
Want to learn more about body literacy? Be sure to check out resources from our friend, Christina Valenzuela at Pearl and Thistle!
