Jason Evert, Catholic speaker, author, and founder of The Chastity Project, discusses his new program created with Matt Fradd, “Forged: 33 Days Towards Freedom.”
Jason defines chastity for listeners. “Abstinence is the absence of sex. Celibacy is different. Celibacy means the state of not being married. But chastity orders our sexuality according to the demands of real love. What it means, for example, if I can’t say no to my sexual impulses, my ‘yes’ really means nothing. So chastity is not the absence of sex, but the presence of an ability to love rightly … We need to drop this idea that chastity is a prudish, repressive attitude towards sex and understand that it’s really the virtue that builds authentic intimacy.”
RELATED: Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience in Marriage
“Chastity is a much broader concept than what I’m not doing in the bedroom,” Jason continues. “It’s what’s going on in my imagination, my speech and all of these areas that affect human relationships. If I don’t have self-mastery, I can’t really make a gift of myself. Chastity is the virtue that frees you to love, and it frees you to know if you’re being loved too, because if you take that element out of a relationship and your partner leaves, well, it’s never you that they wanted to begin with, but perhaps just the pleasure that they could get from you. It’s a real test of love.”
Jason reflects on the deep desires of our hearts that might veil themselves as lust. “The question is, what do you really want? I remember reading an interview where this man was cheating on his wife. It started with porn and escalated from there. He told his Christian friend, ‘Hey, I’m really messing up in this area, struggling with porn.’ His Christian friend said, ‘Well, if looking at porn and masturbating is what you really want to do, then go ahead and do it.’ The man was baffled. He got frustrated and slammed his hand on his desk. And he said, ‘Look, that’s not what I want.’ His friend replied, ‘Exactly, that’s not what you want at the deepest level, to just have some erotic moment with your laptop. What you really long for is authentic love, but you settled for the counterfeit.’ We long for something much more beautiful than what you’re going to find on some website. The key is how to break free from that stuff so we can experience the beauty of God’s plan for love.”
LISTEN: Struggling With Chastity After Divorce
Jason explains how his new program, “Forged,” came about. “A little while ago, we published a book with Kelsey Scope called ‘Uncompromising Purity.’ It’s a book just for women focusing on breaking free from pornography from the female perspective. Kelsey did a great job addressing it for women, but guys come up to me all the time asking how to break free from porn.” The concept inspired Jason to partner with Matt Fradd and put together a resource that addresses the problem not only spiritually and theologically, but psychologically, neurologically, and physiologically — from a fully human perspective. The book includes daily meditations and action items, as well as free videos from Catholic speakers to help those struggling find freedom from porn and lust. Original Air 1-20-21