Question: My husband and I have two beautiful children. We do not wish for more. Is it a sin to have sexual relations with my husband just for our pleasure?
The answer of Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok to the question:
I think it is not sensible, if God were to give you another couple of children, to refuse them. You know how people who do not have children can ask for them. Really. And if God gives children, then I believe He will also give you what you need to bring them up.
So very often it is simply a matter of unbelief and of wanting an easy life: "We have already got children, they are grown a bit now — let us live for ourselves." That seems wrong to me. However many children God gives, those are the children you should receive.
Now, it can also be that if the Lord sees a person is not ready, He may simply not give any more children. But either way, you must protect your family.
You are asking about contraception in marital intimacy. Here you have to decide for yourselves whether you can accept it in conscience or whether you cannot. A person does feel, do they not, when something is a bit off — when there is a kind of selfishness there, a wish for one’s own ease and convenience.
But if God gives children… we know families with many children who are happy. And then the children grow up. Of course, it is a self-sacrificing life: children get ill, children can suffer pain; it means giving your life to another. Yet it is a road towards holiness.
