Grades 7-9 Sunday Group 4/12/26

Scene 1

Dr. Sri directs our attention to the ruins of the largest temple of Rome, the Temple of Venus and Roma. Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, is associated with eros, which is Greek for a passionate, pleasure-seeking love. But true love is much more than eros. True love is self-sacrificial and wills the good of another. This kind of love in Greek is called agape. The Church described God’s love for humanity as agape. If a relationship is only eros, it will end in ruins like the Temple of Venus. 

“Romeo, save me, I’ve been feeling so alone. I keep waiting for you but you never come. Is this in my head? I don’t know what to think. He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said…” —“Love Story” by Taylor Swift 
“We are undercover passion on the run, chasing love up against the sun. We are strangers by day, lovers by night, knowing it’s so wrong, but feeling so right.” —“Part Time Lover” by Stevie Wonder 
“I just called to say I love you. I just called to say how much I care, I do. I just called to say I love you, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. “ —“I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder 
“Oh, what’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love but a second-hand emotion? What’s love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” —“What’s Love Got to Do With It?” by Tina Turner
“I said I love you and that’s forever, and this I promise from my heart. I couldn’t love you any better—I love you just the way you are.” —“Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel 
“You’re asking me will my love grow, I don’t know, I don’t know. You stick around now it may show, I don’t know, I don’t know.” —“Something” by The Beatles
“Love me tender, love me dear, tell me you are mine. I’ll be yours through all the years, till the end of time.” —“Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley 
“They say that time takes its toll on a body, makes the young girls brown hair turn grey. But honey, I don’t care, I ain’t in love with your hair. And if it all fell out, well, I’d love you anyway.” —“I’m Gonna Love You Forever” by Randy Travis 
“She said why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight, and I believe in the morning, you’ll begin to see the light. And then she kissed me, and I realized she probably was right—there must be fifty ways to leave your lover.” —“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon

How has music, media, and the entertainment industry distorted the meaning of love?

Scene 2

Despite her conscience pulling her in the direction of authentic love, Leah Darrow bought into the counterfeit love marketed in pop culture which snowballed into a series of unhealthy relationships. 

Leah’s boyfriend jokingly described his relationship with her as “leasing with the option to buy.” How is this a violation of her human dignity?

Scene 3

Leah says her life began to change when Jesus touched her heart during a photo shoot when she was a professional model. She was scantily clad and in the bright lights of the flash photography when she had a vision of Jesus turning His gaze away from her. It was if Jesus was indicating that He couldn’t bear to watch her objectify herself. She walked out in the middle of the shoot and refused to be used anymore in the industry or in her relationships. 

It is a reality that “you can’t give what you don’t have.” How does this reality relate to the difficulties Leah experienced in her dating relationships?

Sadly, the worldly philosophy of dating prepares a couple more for divorce than for a lifelong, joy-filled marriage. St. Paul sets the standard for married love that dating couples and married couples should aspire to. He writes: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.…Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:21-22, 25).

There is a popular saying that goes: “Behind every great man is a great woman!” How is this saying similar to what St. Paul is saying to the Ephesians?

Scene 4

St. John writes: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16b). We, being made in the image and likeness of God, are made in the image and likeness of love. This is why, as St. Pope John Paul II wrote: “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it” (The Redeemer of Man, 10). 

What do you think it means that “man cannot fully find himself, except through a sincere gift of himself?

St. John writes: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). How does perfect love cast out fear?