God's words are spirit and life (Jn 6:63). God's word gives life as a husband's seed gives life by being united to his wife's egg, for God's word is like seed (Mk 4:14). However, if we contracept by preventing God's word from penetrating us, we never receive new life from God's word.

Even if we let God's word take root in us, we may still abort the word, as a mother can abort the newly conceived person implanted in the wall of her uterus. However, we must choose life and resist the temptation to abort the word. We must "humbly welcome the word that has taken root" in us, with its power to save us (Jas 1:21).

If we nurture the new life of God's word by acting on it (Jas 1:22), if we receive "it, not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God at work within (us) who believe" (1 Thes 2:13), then the Lord will "bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth" (Jas 1:18).

"Be fertile" (Gn 1:28) spiritually and biblically, for "your rebirth has come, not from a destructible but from an indestructible seed, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Pt (1:23).

Nihil Obstat:  Reverend Robert L. Hagedorn, February 1, 1997

Imprimatur:  †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, February 4, 1997