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| Internationally-known chastity speaker and author Jason Evert speaks to a packed hall of more than 300 students on the UW-Madison campus for his talk “Save Your Marriage Before Meeting Your Spouse.” The event was presented by student group Badger Catholic. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash) |
MADISON — On Thursday, Feb. 6, the University of Wisconsin Badgers men’s hockey team defeated number one ranked Minnesota 2 to 1 before almost 9,000 fans at the Kohl Center.
While Bucky was defending the home ice against Goldy, less than one half mile away at UW-Madison’s Gordon Dining and Event Center, more than 300 college students packed the building’s “Concerto Room” to hear about chastity.
Internationally known speaker Jason Evert was on hand to give his talk, “Save Your Marriage Before Meeting Your Spouse.”
Evert and his wife, Crystalina, have spoken on six continents to more than one million people about the virtue of chastity. He and his wife are the authors of more than 10 books, including How to Find Your Soulmate without Losing Your Soul and Theology of the Body for Teens.
The event was presented by Badger Catholic, a student organization on the UW-Madison campus that seeks to inspire greater discussion about spirituality and faith in order to encourage students to better their lives and the lives of those around them.
A large crowd
As the event began, additional chairs had to be brought in, but it wasn’t enough to seat the overflow crowd, who either sat on the floor or stood against the walls.
Evert began his talk, acknowledging the large attendance. He said he was happy to see “standing room only of people skipping a hockey game to save your future marriage . . . this is a beautiful thing.”
He told the late teens and early 20s crowd what some of them may have already known: many young people are sick of “hooking up,” calling the culture on some college campuses “an absolute mess.”
He spoke of the need to “return to [the] virtue of chastity.”
Evert also said young people need to know the real meaning of compatibility. He said, both jokingly and seriously, that the word “compatible” comes from a Latin word meaning “to suffer” and he said, “If you are not willing to suffer with someone until death-do-you-part, you are not compatible.”
He went on to say with the natural differences between men and women, many married couples won’t be compatible in the modern sense of the word.
“The successful marriages are not because you’re perfectly compatible,” Evert said, “but because you have the virtue to deal with the incompatibilities that are going to rise to the surface.”
Abstinence and chastity
Evert warned sex before marriage “covers up an absence of love that entirely fails to develop,” adding “the virtues that are supposed to hold love together for a lifetime never end up developing.”
He shared anecdotes of teens that were in, and eventually ended, relationships because guys only wanted young women for their bodies. These teens would speak with him after he gave talks at other schools.
The “virtue of chastity cuts through a lot of the confusion,” Evert said, adding practicing chastity can help a couple find out why they are really together.
He said taking things slow and being in a chaste relationship lets the young man and woman step back and ask themselves what’s really going on.
Important questions for the woman to ask herself about the man are: What do his ex-girlfriends think about him? How does he treat his mother? How does he treat girls he’s not attracted to? Does he share my morality, or does he just tolerate my morality?
The man should ask: What is it that draws me to this girl? Why am I so drawn to her? Is it because she’s so cute? Or does she really have virtue? Does she bring out the best in me? Would I want a woman like that raising my children? Would I want to spend all of my days with her?
Marriage as a vocation
“For a man to enter the vocation of marriage, it is understood you must come and die,” Evert said.
He said it’s imprinted on every man’s heart to want to “die” and give up everything for his family. Men want someone to die for.
“Abstinence is a greater expression of love than making love itself, because you’re doing what’s best for your beloved love and not merely what feels good in the moment,” he said.
Evert later re-emphasized the differences between men and women, especially when it comes to communication.
He said, especially on a college campus, men don’t speak and women have no idea what the status of their relationship with the man is.
He urged men to speak up, saying, “It’s a tremendous honor to the woman to her let know what you’re thinking so she doesn’t have to figure it out all on her own.”
For anyone who may have made mistakes in the past with their chastity, Evert said, “It doesn’t matter what your past is — anyone can start over.”
He said no one is “damaged goods” and that everyone can live a life of virtue and chastity until he or she is married.
He told the young people if they’ve been trying to take their love life into their own hands, and find a mess in their hands, now is the time to “empty the hands” to God.
“This is the love of God,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re at right now, how far you think you are, He’s here to welcome you home.”
For more information on Jason Evert and the “Chastity Project,” visit www.chastityproject.com
For more information on Badger Catholic and other upcoming events, visit www.badgercatholic.org