The right theology led Evan Lemoine to happiness and his life's calling.
The Baton Rouge native is an internationally known speaker and expert on “Theology of the Body.” Now living in Mexico, Lemoine recently returned for presentations at St. Agnes Catholic Church, including a young adult session titled “Does God Want Me Happy? Who I Am and Who God is Based on the Theology of the Body.”
“The Theology of the Body gave me the understanding that God calls me to happiness and a very intimate relationship with him,” said Lemoine, a Catholic High and LSU graduate.
Evan Lemoine speaks recently at St.Agnes Catholic Church in Baton Rouge.
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Based on a series of 129 teachings developed by Pope John Paul II, Theology of the Body presents God's plan for human love, sexuality and dignity.
“The body and only the body is capable of making visible the invisible, the divine spiritual and the divine. It transfers early reality, the mystery of God, to all eternity,” Lemoine said, quoting John Paul II.
Lemoine, 44, explained that the teachings stress God's desires for people to experience a life of abundance, not merely endure sacrifice and suffering.
“He wants happiness,” Lemoine said. “He wants his glory for us here on earth and in heaven. It's not just about sucking it up until we die and hope it was all worth it.”
The teachings helped transform Lemoine's life as a 21-year-old LSU student.
Lemoine said his world was “rocked” in high school when his parents separated briefly. After they reconciled, Lemoine asked his father how they were able to rebuild the marriage.
“He said, 'You have two options: You can either build your house on sand, or you can build it on solid rock,'” Lemoine recalled. "'For the first 25 years of our marriage, we built it on sand, and you saw what happened. Now we're built on rock, and that rock is having God at the center and learning how to love one another the way God loves.'”
The father then introduced him to Theology of the Body.
“It echoed so deeply in my heart,” he said. “This is what my desires were screaming at me, and I just was feeding my desires and appetite for something that was never going to satisfy me.”
His understanding deepened after he attended a course in Baton Rouge by renowned author Christopher West, president of Theology of the Body Institute in Philadelphia.
"(West) said at the end of the course that some people here might feel the call to spend the rest of their lives diving deep into this and spread it around the world, and I felt that call,” Lemoine said.
Since 2008, he has served with the Theology of the Body Institute, presenting its teachings worldwide in English and Spanish. In 2013, Lemoine helped found the Amar al Máximo Institute, a Catholic educational ministry in Guadalajara, Mexico.