More than 500 people filled St Kevin’s Church, Eastwood, on a rain-sodden Saturday night for a moment of collective wonder about the deepest meaning of Christianity and what it means to be human.
The mostly young adult crowd had come to hear US-based Theology of the Body speaker and author Christopher West, known world-wide for presenting Christianity in all its embodied glory with frankness about the realities of the flesh, with humour, song, art, and intellectual exposition.
Had his path been different, West could have made a successful stand-up comedian. Instead, he is more than two decades into his full-time apostolate of evangelisation and teaching of St John Paul II’s Theology of the Body through his own Theology of the Body Institute.
At the invitation of the archdiocesan Sydney Centre for Evangelisation’s Life, Marriage, and Family team, West invited his listeners on 17 January to rethink what they thought Christianity was about: not a set of rules or moral prohibitions, but the radical claim that at the first Christmas God “wedded” himself to humanity.
That God became man, born of a woman, is often taken for granted but West’s two-hour talk unpacked the implications, making them explicit and articulating the Christian message in ways some had never heard before.
He began and ended with the Eucharist as God’s answer to the deepest hunger of the human heart.
The Eucharist is God’s “sacramental promise” that our longing for heaven, infinite beauty, and lasting satisfaction will not be disappointed, because Christ is truly present there and invites us to receive him, West explained.
In the Incarnation, at Christmas, divinity and human flesh were united forever, meaning that for Christians, the spiritual and the physical can never be separated without distorting the Gospel. God comes to meet us in our bodily, everyday lives.
Drawing on St Paul’s image of Christ the Bridegroom and the church as his bride, West said marriage illuminates Christianity and Christianity illuminates marriage.
The differences of male and female bodies, and the call to become “one flesh,” are meant to be a visible sign of God’s plan to unite humanity to himself in an eternal covenant of love, he explained.
It’s a message young couple Ken Kahim and Valencia Caitlyn Kwando found deeply meaningful.
“We’ve been dating for about a year and this helps us a lot in growing spiritually,” said Kahim.
“Especially, because we are still young, these Catholic teachings really help us in how to live in this modern era.
“And I like how he explains things so well, with so much humour.”
Kwando said she felt reassured by West’s reminder of the depth of God’s personal love.
“God will always be with me and will always help me, and I should be treated with respect,” she said.
Fellow attendee Cecilia Hunt said it was lovely to see West “just being himself”.
“He’s very free to make strange sounds or break into singing in the midst of his talk, but he’s obviously been touched by the Holy Spirit,” she said.
West also explored how beauty in music, art, nature, and especially the human person, awakens desire and points beyond itself to God. Sin “twists” this desire, but Christ’s life, death and resurrection restores the body’s original meaning and dignity. And so believers are called to bring every part of their body and their whole life into the light of grace.
West concluded by urging Catholics to recover an integrated appreciation of the body, sexuality, and vocation grounded in the Eucharist.
In the Mass, he said, Christ the eternal bridegroom gives his body for his bride, and the church receives the “bread come down from heaven.
Following what was the SCE’s first big event for 2026, the Life, Marriage, and Family team’s Simon Yeak thanked St Kevin’s parish and its priest Fr Pawel Kopczynski CSMA for hosting the evening in collaboration with the team and the Theology of the Body Institute.
“We’re thrilled to have Christopher come to Sydney to speak, and he’s always welcomed every time he’s here by hundreds of people,” Yeak said.
“We couldn’t be happier that so many people are thirsting for this gift of the Theology of the Body.”
