CNS photo courtesy of the Superior Catholic Herald
SUPERIOR, Wisconsin (CNS) -- Actively living out their Catholic faith as individuals and a couple – following the church's teachings on natural family planning in particular – has sometimes been challenging for Nick and Emily Frase.
But for Nick, who grew up in the Diocese of Superior, the lesson that being a faithful Catholic wouldn't always come easy was built into his formation. Strength in their faith and the support of a solid Christian community has guided the couple through trying times.
"Having that community of a bunch of people just trying to do marriage and parenthood to the best of their ability has made all the difference with us remaining faithful to the church and each other," Emily said.
"We've met a lot of faithful couples who are in agreement that the era of comfortable Christianity is over," Nick agreed. "We cannot rely on the broader culture to inculcate our children with a baseline Judeo-Christian ethic – the sort of thing taken for granted by previous generations."
Born in Milwaukee, Nick spent most of his childhood in Hudson, Wisconsin. He and his parents, Mike and Cyndee Frase, were parishioners at St. Patrick Parish, where his parents remain active members. Nick headed off to Washington after his 2010 graduation from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history with a minor in theology.
While working for the Family Research Council, a pro-marriage, pro-life organization in Washington, Nick met Emily, who started out as a paid intern and stayed on for five years. The couple married in 2016.
A native of Louisiana, Emily also had a solid Catholic upbringing. She and her brother were home-schooled, mostly through a co-op with other families, until eighth grade. Her parents moved to Texas when she was a teen.
"One of my fondest memories was being taught my catechism by the Missionaries of Charity," she recalled. "They had a mission at the parish we attended in Baton Rouge. I still remember being prepared for my first Communion by Sister Tessalina, a sweet nun from India, who taught us many of Mother Teresa's simple prayers, some of which I still say to this day."
Emily quit her job with the Family Research Council to stay at home soon after the couple's first child, Evelyn Grace, was born in March 2017. A second child, Thomas Fulton, arrived in June 2018.
When they married, NFP was the obvious family-planning choice for two devout Catholics. They started out with the sympto-thermal method, which they learned from the Couple to Couple League.
Unfortunately, it didn't work for them. Emily was pregnant three months in.
"We actually had two unexpected pregnancies," said Emily. "That experience definitely made us question the sanity of church teaching on NFP and birth control because, clearly, the church's way wasn't an effective way to plan our family."
Their daughter was eight months old when Emily found out she was one month pregnant with their son.
Her faith was tested by the early pregnancy, Emily said. She felt "totally abandoned by God," and questioned everything, "including the goodness of God."
"We had been faithful to church teaching, we had valid reasons to avoid a pregnancy, and yet it felt like God didn't care," she added. "I was very angry, and eventually just stopped praying, though I kept attending Mass and going to confession."
Then, they realized they should have had "realistic expectations about NFP" from the beginning of their marriage, she commented.
After their son's birth, the couple switched to the Marquette method, a fertility awareness system that worked for them. But Emily didn't just gloss over their tumultuous relationship with NFP. She used her story, along with her professional experience in writing and editing, to develop a blog she had started in 2018 into a space of dialogue for Catholics.
It's called Total W(h)ine, https://totalwhine.com. Her tagline is: "Jesus made it. My kids do it. I drink it. In vino veritas." ("In wine, there is truth.")
Besides NFP, self-care, wellness, faith and the role of the stay-at-home mom also are part of the discussion.
"The response has been overwhelming," she said. "I am now in the process of forming an organization to address these issues I've encountered from countless women and couples on a larger scale."
Nick admires his wife's work. He sees NFP as both countercultural and a powerful form of Christian witness.
"NFP has been such a lodestar and, I hesitate to say, litmus test because it is one of these outwardly visible witnesses that is massively inconvenient in the world's eyes," he commented, adding: "We have met so many people of honest faith (often Protestant) who are attracted to this idea of authentic surrender to God's will and open up their souls to us in deep ways. We need to witness the truth of our faith and live it honestly.
Draper is editor of the Superior Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Diocese of Superior.