The custom on Valentine’s Day is to remember those we love in our lives by giving them gifts, flowers, cards, or similar tokens of our affection. These little expressions of love and sentiment are shared by relatives, sweethearts, and spouses the world over, and this is good. But amidst the cute commercial sea of chocolates, hearts, and balloons it is easy to lose sight of the love that we are called to as members of Christ’s Body: the love that embraces suffering and even death for the sake of the beloved.
Valentine’s Day provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the love of Jesus Christ, which, through the grace of the Sacraments, nurtures and cultivates all other loves and relationships. St. Valentine himself was a priest who was martyred for his love of Christ. As members of the Church, we are loved by Jesus, individually and personally, and He wants us to reflect His love into the world so all people may come to know Him.
The Church, the Scriptures, and the saints reveal to us what love is—or more accurately, Who love is—and how we can truly love others as we are meant to in this life.

In this lesson your students will:

• Explore what the Catechism teaches about true love (charity).
• Learn how we can recognize and practice charity in imitation of Christ.
• Examine the distinction between feeling God’s presence and being in God’s presence, and how this distinction also applies to love.
• Consider how, in our wayward culture, Valentine’s Day invites us both to consider what love really is and to share it with others.
• Discuss the ways Christ is calling us to love others each and every day.