When I heard that Jason Evert was going to be a guest speaker at Cistercian, I was pretty surprised and excited. He’s a big name in the chastity movement, and Fr. Ambrose and Fr. Joseph teach some of his material in their theology classes every year. Cistercian had gotten hold of a fairly big name speaker to talk to us. Nevertheless, receptivity by students was quite apprehensive. Because most students had studied his ideas before, the student body thought his talk couldn’t be anything new. As one student snidely remarked the day of the talk, “I’m looking forward to a long nap.” However, despite this initial skepticism about how the talk would go, the atmosphere of the auditorium was electric as students filed in and took their seats. Upper school assemblies don’t occur very often, and so this felt like a special occasion.

After a brief prayer before his talk, Mr. Evert began with a demonstration that set the tone for his whole address. He asked for a volunteer, and Informer’s own Emmanuel Adesanya rose to the occasion. Mr. Evert gave Emmanuel a wig, asked him to pretend to be a girl, and then proceeded to pick Emmanuel up off the floor and onto his back in a fireman’s carry. He said he was standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and Emmanuel was his girlfriend. His question for all of us was how far to the edge of the abyss was he allowed to go with her, a question that almost every high schooler wants to know the answer to. Now, however, the answer was abundantly clear. Get close enough to see the beauty and depth of the canyon without putting the girl in danger. The demonstration was engaging, lively, and interactive, but most of all it was thought provoking. Throughout the talk he used similar metaphors and stories to challenge the notions of love and chastity that students had, and ultimately he used the golden rule as his standard. If you don’t want your future spouse to come into your marriage impure, then don’t disrespect someone else’s future spouse. If you don’t want your daughters to get disrespected, then don’t disrespect someone else’s daughters. But all of these deep lessons were taught in the framework of stories, with different postures and voices for each new character. His talk was very humorous, and though rehearsed, still connected with the audience.

By the end, even those most skeptical of the guest speaker only an hour beforehand had undergone a complete change of mind, swept away by his infectious enthusiasm, common sense ethics, and persuasive rhetoric. Within ten minutes of the conclusion of the talk, every bit of paraphernalia and literature that he had brought with him was gone, snatched up by high schoolers hungry to learn more about this astonishing man and his ideas. Most of the students felt inspired by his words, and many felt his talk to be a personal call to a fuller life of chastity and purity. Conversations were held all through the rest of the day, and the regular apathy that fills Cistercian’s walls had vanished, replaced by an eager desire to talk about these new ideas. And yet, at the end of the day, Evert said what every student knew in his heart and mind. His great success lay not in his teaching, but in his rhetoric. He had blown a sudden breath of vivacious ardor into what had been a somewhat stale teaching.