It’s not uncommon to have couples of advanced years in the SmartLoving Engaged course. One or both may be widowed, or they may have only found love and a vocation to marriage after many decades of single life. 

Sometimes they express confusion or frustration that their marriage preparation course includes fertility awareness education. For example, recently a widower in his 70s engaged to a widow in her 60s asked, “Why do we have to do this course? We are both past the age of childbearing.”

We get it! It’s not immediately obvious how fertility awareness formation is relevant to them. Here are three ways:

1: Benefits for monitoring health 

Fertility awareness is more than a method for managing conception. It’s a lifestyle founded on an attunement to our bodies’ physical and emotional needs.  

It’s particularly important for women, who experience hormonally induced variations in their physiological and psycho-emotional profile throughout the menstrual cycle.  

These variations are associated with different nutritional needs, brain function, and mood. Fertility awareness assists women in tracking these changes so that they can optimise for the ebbs and flows. 

And when it comes to reproductive system disorders, fertility awareness is a valuable diagnostic tool that’s relevant to general health, irrespective of family planning intentions or age. 

2: Deepens spirituality 

The scriptures record that male and female are central to God’s creative plan. In Genesis we read: “God created humankind in His image … male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27)  

In other words, being male or female is central to our identity as God’s created masterpiece. If we want to know the heart of God, we need to contemplate this mystery. 

Because it’s not just about the physiological distinction in our reproductive organs and hormones. For example, gene expression studies have found 37% of genes exhibit sex-biased expression, impacting multiple tissues in the body.  

Our distinctiveness as men and women is so much more than an X or Y chromosome! Fertility awareness includes a whole person appreciation of the unique giftedness of each sex – what is called the feminine and masculine genius. 

This theological and spiritual formation, facilitated through the practice of fertility awareness, deepens our appreciation of God’s creative expression in the human body, particularly through the one-flesh union of the marital act. That applies no matter how old a couple may be. 

3: Witnessing to others 

The Sacrament of Matrimony (marriage), along with the Sacrament of Holy Orders (priesthood), are missionary sacraments. That means they are intended to serve the Church, or a community of Christian believers.

Specifically, marriage witnesses to the mystery of the ‘one-flesh union’ between Jesus Christ and the Church. The Apostle Paul, a great champion of the Christian faith, speaks of this when he addressed couples in his letter to the Ephesians almost 2,000 years ago:

“‘… A man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5: 31-32) 

In other words, the love of husband-and-wife images the love between Christ and His people. Both are a one-flesh union, a holy communion.

Therefore, every couple married in the Christian tradition is called to bear witness to this mystery by loving each other in imitation of Christ’s love. It’s a love which is both unitive and life-giving (procreative).