In today’s episode it’s time to talk about the question of ambition in a Catholic school. We’ve all seen what happens when people start playing politics to get that next promotion. Is this simply a part of human life in a work environment? Should a Catholic school have a different approach? In this episode we look at what happens when Marian spirituality meets the human quest for recognition and success.

Transcript
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Well, Hey everybody.

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Jonathan Doyle with you as always welcome aboard to the Catholic

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teacher daily podcast for today.

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Really looking forward to sharing some time with you.

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It is.

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Well, it's an important liturgical day here in the great south land of

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the holy spirit here in Australia.

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It is a very significant fee state.

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It is the feast.

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Of our lady help of Christians, the, uh, the patron Saint,

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if you will, of this land.

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And so I got up this morning, I prayed the divine office and then

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went through the readings for the day.

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And usually regular listeners would know of course that on.

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The Catholic teacher daily podcast, we're looking at key quotes, but occasionally I

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think something jumps out from scripture that I wanted to share with you all.

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And the readings today, uh, come from James and they jump across

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to the start of Luke's gospel.

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And as I read them both, you see this incredibly important link.

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The holy spirit is trying to tell us something through.

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This feast day.

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And through these two readings.

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So the first readings over in James three, and it's talking about.

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Sort of two kinds of wisdom and, you know, sort of saying that human wisdom.

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Is often driven by ambition.

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Uh, that we think there's all sorts of things we should do.

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And I'll give you this key line here.

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This is in James three.

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Uh, we're jumping down to, uh, verse 15.

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It says such wisdom.

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So-called wisdom does not come down from heaven.

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But is earthly unspiritual of the devil for where you have envy.

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And so fish ambition there, you find disorder and every evil practice.

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So the first thing it's doing is talking about this kind of, I

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guess, earthly human wisdom, where people are driven towards ambition.

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And, uh, Applying their own relatively limited resources to the complex

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questions of human existence.

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And then we jump across and stay with me.

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This is where it gets good.

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We jump across to.

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The, uh, first chapter of Luke, and this is where Mary goes

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to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

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And then we get, of course the Magnificat.

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So she talks, of course my soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit

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rejoices in God, my savior.

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But then she gets down to this whole part where she says, where's

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this lime that God has looked upon.

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Um, the lowliness of his servant and she keeps talking about, you know,

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he's brought down rulers from their Thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

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He has filled the hungry with good things, but sent the rich away empty.

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And as you read through it, you see why they chose these readings because they're

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showing kind of a human earthly response.

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And then you see Mary's response of this profound humility.

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So, what is humility?

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You know, it's like, um, you know, the siege of Troy, you know, Helen of

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Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships humility is like the word that.

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Launched a thousand books, you know, there's so much written about it.

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I think.

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Look at the most simple level, it's basically an awareness of

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who we are in relationship to God.

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And it's not like, oh my gosh, I'm a miserable worm kind of reality.

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It's.

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This awareness that this weird paradox that we are.

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So, you know, so small in the cosmos, but so precious to God.

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So we see this, you know, this beautiful idea of humility, where we

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kind of sense our place in reality.

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That we have.

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A perfect father who loves us and loved us into existence and has

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promised to take care of us, you know?

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Why did Jesus talk about, you know, that not even a Sparrow would fall to the

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ground without his father knowing, and then saying that were of course so much

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more precious than a single Sparrow.

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So.

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This humility is this sort of trust in God.

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You look at Mary, you know, and Elizabeth says to her, she goes blessed to you.

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Who believed that what the Lord said to her would happen?

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So Mary's humility also comes from believing and trusting

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that God would bring about what he promised to bring about.

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Now, here's where I want to link this to Catholic education.

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I'm not a big fan of ambition in Catholic education.

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I'm a fan of ambition in our students in terms of wanting to encourage

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them to be ambitious, to learn, to achieve, to do well, to make the

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best of their talents and abilities.

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I think we should be ambitious in the sense of.

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Taking the incredible gifts that God's given each one of us as educators and

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seeing them fully brought to fruition.

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The ambition that can be problematic is the ambition for

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promotion or power or recognition.

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You know that spirit that, um, I guess all of us can carry at some point,

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but you'll definitely see it over the course of cure of your career.

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People jockeying for position.

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Manipulating things to get a promotion.

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And I remember seeing it over the years in different formats.

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And I think that kind of ambition as James tells us here in chapter

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three of James is highly problematic.

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It becomes very utilitarian.

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It becomes manipulative and, uh, Look, my whole attitude to promotion and

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power in a Catholic school comes from a beautiful quote from Christine cane.

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It's always stayed with me and I hope you remember this.

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She said, if God wants you.

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He knows where to find you.

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I always love that if God wants you, he knows where to find you.

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If God wants you to be a principal, he knows where to find you.

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If God wants you to be in charge of a subject area, he knows where to find you.

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If God wants you to be a humble, amazing classroom teacher for 45

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years, he knows where to find you.

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I think a great piece comes in Catholic education, where we relax and trust.

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That our career, our progress is in his hands and all we have to do.

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Is remember what Saint Augustan said.

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He said, you know, he who made you without your cooperation will not

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save you without your cooperation.

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Which simply means that God didn't ask us if we wanted to exist.

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We didn't get a choice on that one, but he does ask us if we

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want to cooperate with his grace and his, his heart for our lives.

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Isn't that incredible.

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That's that, you know, the humility of God, right?

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That.

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He doesn't create robots.

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So all he asks in our career is that we cooperate.

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And then he'll take care of the rest.

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What does that corporation looks like?

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It's a disposition of the heart.

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It's a simple desire.

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Lord.

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I trust you with my career.

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I trust you with this day.

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But the part that we need to do is be people of prayer, people of sacrament.

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We need to be in all our, you know, limited ability we need to be trying

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to, um, grow and holiness of life.

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So watching out for those big blind spots of sin, that all of us have.

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And then he'll do the rest, you know, and the, the greatest Catholic schools,

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the best Catholic principles, the best priests, bishops, religious,

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uh, men and women who relax.

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And simply try to be who God has called them to be in any given day.

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And then the rest takes care of itself.

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So my friends, I hope that today on the feast of our lady, help

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of Christians, we can be reminded of that great humility of Mary.

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Who and you know, it's always interesting.

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Who's the greatest Christian in history.

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I always have this joke with my kids when they were younger.

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I'd say.

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You know, who is the most important, greatest Christian ever.

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And when they were little, they'd be like, Jesus.

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I'd say no, Jesus was not a Christian.

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Jesus was not a Jesus follower.

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Um, he was not a disciple of himself.

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So they go, oh, oh.

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And they go with some Peter and then some people go with simple and I go, no.

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It's that beautiful line from, um, uh, Pope Benedict Ameritas.

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famous book, Mary, the church at the source.

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And I've said this many times, he starts this very important book on Mariology,

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where he simply starts with this sentence.

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He says the church.

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Begins.

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With Mary.

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Mary was the first disciple friends.

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She was the first disciple.

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She was the first one that heard the good news.

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That God was about to make a daring raid on enemy held

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territory and she was going to be.

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The, um, You know, the beachhead, the, the, the place where God would break

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into reality in a profound new way.

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So she is the greatest Christian in history without her.

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There is no.

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Christianity without her.

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And people go, well, maybe God would have done it a different

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way maybe, but he didn't.

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He did it through her and her humility.

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And that's why this Luke chapter one is so important because it just, she sings of.

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Her her, her have moved.

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She is that the great God of the cosmos has looked upon her.

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Lowliness.

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And her humility and raised her up to the highest place, you know, and you

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know, the doctrine of the assumption and Mary being crowned queen of

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heaven, it's kind of a big deal.

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It's almost as if, you know, when you seek the lowest place.

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And again, why did Jesus say that?

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Why did Jesus say, you know, when a friend holds a banquet go and sit in the lowest

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place and God's going to bring you up.

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Imagine if we had that in Catholic education.

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No political jockeying, no ambition.

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Just everybody constantly trying to be, just seek the place that

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God's put them in and be there until he changes that position.

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And then trusting that even if he doesn't, you're still where he wants you to be.

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Well kind of cultural, isn't it?

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How different is this?

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To the world of Instagram fame.

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How the world of look at me, look at me, look at me, validate me,

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you know, spend 30 seconds on Twitter and you just see half the

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planet screaming, validate my rage.

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May I imagine a world where we just keep seeking the lowest place.

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Huh?

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We seek, we keep seeking the place of service, not out of.

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You know, insecurity or a fractured sense of self, but a trust.

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A trust that I am today, where he wants me to be.

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And, uh, all we can do is pray.

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I think, you know, John Henry Cardinal Newman had that beautiful.

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Beautiful prayer, where he said, you know that even if I, even if I don't

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know what's happening, I'm going to trust that you're leading me.

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All right friends.

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I hope that's a blessing to you today.

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Let us let go of the wrong kinds of ambition and let us seek to be

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like Mary and, uh, allow God to do amazing things through our humility.

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And our trust in him.

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All right.

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That's it for me, everybody.

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Thank you so much for what you're doing in catholic education my name's

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jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and i'll