Catholic speaker Jason Evert headed for chastity mission in Australia
AMERICA’S top chastity speaker will help Australia’s young Catholics “find and give the love they were created for” during his December visit this year.
Popular Catholic speaker Jason Evert will give a keynote address at the country’s largest youth festival this year held in Adelaide from December 4 to 6.
This will be the only chance to see the renowned Catholic author and speaker in Australia this year.
Ahead of his visit, Mr Evert told the Australia Catholic Bishops Conference, Office for Youth that he hoped his address would show young Australians the freedom chastity brings.
“‘Pope John Paul II once said that chastity can only be thought of in association with the virtue of love,” Mr Evert said.
“My hope is that through the presentations I offer, the youth will see how chastity frees them to love and frees them to know if they are being loved.”
Mr Evert will speak on the Australian Catholic Youth Festival’s them, based on the Gospel of Matthew, ‘Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God’.
Mr Evert last visited Australia for the Sydney World Youth Day in 2008.
He said young Australians were “warm and receptive to the message” of chastity, but many were “hungry for love” and eager to renew their lives.
“My goal is simply to help them find it,” he said.
At a time when chastity is little exercised in modern society, young people needed to know that it freed them to love, Mr Evert said.
“If I cannot say no to my sexual desires, then what is my “yes” worth?” he said.
“By learning to master our desires, we grow in freedom so that we can make a true gift of ourselves.”
“‘I am quite sure that any woman can distinguish between a husband who has self control and a husband who sees his wife merely as an outlet for his sexual urges.
‘Through practicing chastity as a single person, we train ourselves in patience, purity, faithfulness, and self-control, and these virtues are tremendous assets in building solid marriages,’ Jason said.
‘Chastity trains us to love because we’re doing what’s best for the other person, not merely what feels good in the moment,’ he added.
Rather than scaring or shaming people into the Church’s teaching on sexuality, Mr Evert said his work opened hearts “to the fact that God loves us” and relationships should mirror this divine love.
Mr Evert and his wife Crystalina Evert have spoken to more than one million people on six continents about the Catholic virtue of chastity.
The couple have previously worked for US ministry Catholic Answers before focusing on their own project promoting purity.
Copies of Jason’s books and resources from Chastity Project will be available for sale during the Australian Catholic Youth Festival.
Early bird registrations for the Festival close on Thursday 27 August 2015.
