37
creation written in the woman’s biological signs, they deepen their nuptial union with each other
and with God. 150 Fertility charting requires a contemplative attitude, a quiet listening to the body,
and the fostering of a total person spousal dialogue. 151 The contemplation and interior gaze
involved in charting fertility is meant to be shared between the spouses as they read together the
book of the mystery of creation. 152 In the daily observations, faith and science meet and affirm
each other as the biological sign of fertility becomes, in a certain sense, a sacramental of the
sacrament of marriage, i.e. a specific, material sign which prepares and disposes the couple to
cooperate with the grace of marriage through conjugal union. 153
This interior gaze belongs first of all to the woman, who listens for the divine invitation
as she beholds the mystery of creation blossoming and overflowing in the language of her body.
Through the clear pane of the fertile window, she gazes at the reflection of God’s self-revelation,
the divine interior glory manifested in the visible reality of the feminine mystery. For the
woman, whom St. John Paul II describes as “a subject responsible for herself,” 154 and “the
master of her own mystery as a ‘garden enclosed’ and a ‘fountain sealed,” 155 this divine
invitation spoken through her body has only one proper response. In the language of creation,
God’s ordinance to “tend the garden” speaks of a prescribed awareness of and respect for the
biological functions of her body, a command finding its echo in the words of Humanae Vitae. 156
This invitation demands that the woman not keep the mystery of creation to herself, but rather
that she share it with her spouse. Indeed, the woman is given to man from the beginning;
therefore, she must continue to give herself to man by revealing to him the secrets of her interior
150
Ibid., 18:00.
Stephen Torraco, The Gospel of Life in Health and Medicine (Virginia: The Catholic Distance
University, 2005), 7-9.
152
Benedict XVI, “St. Albert the Great,” para. 16.
153
Cf. CCC 1670.
154
MD, sec. 14.
155
John Paul II, “Truth and Freedom,” sec. 4.
156
HV, 10.
151