CV NEWS FEED // Approximately 2,000 Catholic 8th graders in the Archdiocese of Miami, Florida this month attended a conference where they learned about faith, science, Church teachings on love, and what it means to be “made in the image and likeness of God.”
The archdiocese’s Office of Evangelization and Parish Life organized the “Greater Love Conference,” which took place on March 6. The conference included speakers who discussed topics including Theology of the Body and chastity, faith and science, and what it means to be a human being made in the image and likeness of God.
The conference’s “purpose is to offer eighth graders the Church’s perspective on love and sexuality to counteract the cultural messaging and to serve as a firm foundation before they launch into high school,” wrote Cristina Cabrera Jarro for the Miami archdiocese news site.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski gave the opening remarks at the conference, and explained that to love someone is an act of the will, rather than a passing feeling.
“The most important thing that we have to learn how to do is to love and to remember that love is more than just a feeling, but a decision, a commitment to seek what is right, to seek what is good for one another,” Wenski said. He emphasized that Christians are called to follow Jesus’ example and strive to know Him as the “way, the truth and the life.”
Guest speaker and radiologist Dr. Grazie Christie gave a talk at the conference that discussed faith and science, especially focusing on when human life begins.
Christie discussed when human life begins at conception, and showed the developmental stages of an unborn child. “Students were amazed as they watched ultrasound footage of a 12-week-old in the mother’s womb,” Cabrera Jarro wrote.
The miracle “of life begins with sex, [Christie] said, which should occur inside of marriage to follow God’s plan in aiding the reproduction of the human species,” Cabrera Jarro added:
She believes the carelessness of sex outside of marriage over the last 50 years or so has broken that sacred pact, resulting in “terrible consequences” like broken families, sexually transmitted diseases, and unplanned pregnancies which sometimes end with abortion.
So, what should students do? Dr. Christie recommends knowing the facts, the science and the truth.
Students should “live the life you were meant to lead” chastely and “beautifully,” Christie said, “and encourage your friends to do the same thing.”
In another talk at the conference, guest speaker Braden Johnson talked about popularity, fame, and loving God.
Johnson shared that when he was in middle school, he struggled with confidence and was bullied. He said that he looked to basketball as an outlet that he over-depended on.
“It was never enough. If I had a bad pick-up game, or a bad tournament, it would hurt. It wasn’t just my confidence in basketball that was hurting, it was my confidence in who I was as a person,” Johnson said.
Moving into high school, he depended on social media for validation but soon felt such a pressure to “constantly post” that he felt physical pain.
Finally, in college, Johnson began going to adoration on Friday nights, where he found true peace.
“It was this peace that gave me this confidence to trust that if I really gave my life to Jesus, he would have more for me than I ever thought possible,” Johnson said.
He told the 8th graders, “We’re made for so much more than the world can give us. There starts to be this real life, this real fulfillment, this real confidence we have about ourselves as we truly discover how amazing God is and how amazingly He created us.”
A third talk, presented by Bridget Hanafin, discussed what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. Similar to Johnson, Hanafin encouraged the students to seek more than what the world has to offer.
“The ultimate divine love shared through Christ in his humanity helps us answer this question of what it means to be human and how to live out our humanity freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully,” she said. “It’s not just about soaking in what the world has, but to soak in everything that Christ teaches us daily.”
“Whether you are an eighth grader, a senior in high school, or a professional 10 years down the road, your personal identity stems from your creator, from God himself, from being made in the image and likeness of God with dignity, goodness, and worth,” Hanafin said.
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