I’m on a mission.
For much of the last decade I have been trying to help Catholic teachers around the world realise that their vocation means they are, what I like to call, ‘professional givers.’ They give and they give and they give.
Sooner or later, in the absence of restoration and replenishment this constant giving can exact a heavy toll.
It manifests in short temper, fatigue, brain fog, cynicism and sarcasm, overwhelm and eventual despair.
It does not have to be this way.
In today’s episode I want to talk with you about the crucial need to fight for the stillness and silence that will allow Jesus to be the restoration you need.
If you don’t feel you can do it for yourself then do it for those you love.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan DOR with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Hope you're doing well.
Speaker:It's Monday here.
Speaker:Hope you had a good weekend.
Speaker:I've been taking one of my kids surfing every Saturday.
Speaker:It's a two hour drive there.
Speaker:It's a two hour drive back.
Speaker:It's a tough drive too.
Speaker:And, uh, and it was freezing.
Speaker:Absolutely freezing.
Speaker:But, uh, it's great.
Speaker:It's, she's a, it's great to have Tom with her.
Speaker:And, uh, just to, uh, it's amazing when you're, when you're stuck in
Speaker:the car together, you learn so much.
Speaker:I've learned all about one direction.
Speaker:I've learned about boy bands.
Speaker:I'm learning so much, but a good weekend for us.
Speaker:We're about to get a huge cold front through here in
Speaker:Australia in the next few days.
Speaker:So it's going to plummet.
Speaker:And a good way that to be indoors and in a studio, recording podcasts for
Speaker:Catholic teachers around the world who makes such a great difference.
Speaker:In the lives of young people every single day.
Speaker:So my friend, if you've come through to the podcast today, you probably
Speaker:seen the email that I sent out.
Speaker:So always remember if you're not getting that daily email from me,
Speaker:please send me an email today.
Speaker:Just Jonathan at.
Speaker:Uh, one Catholic teacher.com one Catholic teacher.com.
Speaker:And I'll get you on that list because I just love sending this out each day.
Speaker:A little bit of encouragement.
Speaker:And today is a great quote from, uh, George's bananas, uh, who is
Speaker:a great philosopher and writer.
Speaker:And this is what he had to say.
Speaker:He said,
Speaker:Quite.
Speaker:You owe it to everyone.
Speaker:You love to find pockets of tranquility.
Speaker:In your busy day.
Speaker:One more time.
Speaker:You owe it to everyone.
Speaker:You love to find pockets of tranquility.
Speaker:In your busy day.
Speaker:Well, have you been paying attention?
Speaker:You wouldn't know that mindfulness and meditation are a global mega business.
Speaker:Everybody's trying to ironically get moments of mindfulness on
Speaker:an app, staring at their phone.
Speaker:Trying to get mindfulness through a digital device look, which
Speaker:is, I think is a good thing.
Speaker:I think we've got to take every chance we've we can, but I think it's
Speaker:pointing to a cultural realization.
Speaker:That we are enormously stimulated culture, right?
Speaker:We are a highly technological culture.
Speaker:And there are incredibly intelligent, brilliant, wealthy people trying to
Speaker:ensure that we stay as focused and addicted to devices as possible.
Speaker:So there's that technological aspect.
Speaker:But then of course there is just the pace of life, you know, Karen and
Speaker:I still got three young kids and.
Speaker:And just like many of you listening, you know what it's like to often say that it
Speaker:makes the, the, uh, the Normandy invasion in 1944, it looks pretty straightforward
Speaker:in terms of logistics when it.
Speaker:Uh, when it's compared to getting three kids to school on time on a weekday.
Speaker:So we've got the technological busy-ness, we've got the business
Speaker:of our family and private lives.
Speaker:And then we've got, obviously your vocation as a Catholic teacher.
Speaker:You know, trying to be creative, trying to come up with.
Speaker:You know, content and, and lesson plans that really bless young people.
Speaker:So what a life we have at the moment.
Speaker:So for many years, I've been trying to tell every Catholic
Speaker:teacher that will listen.
Speaker:That the path of prayer.
Speaker:Catholic contemplative prayer, Eucharistic adoration.
Speaker:The rosary.
Speaker:All of these things are not some kind of pious tacked on thing
Speaker:that's appropriate for really wholly old ladies that you see in the.
Speaker:In the church once in a while, it's it's really for all of us,
Speaker:whatever age, whatever stage of life.
Speaker:This path of prayer and stillness is for me a non-negotiable.
Speaker:So, as I've said, many times, my day usually starts about 4:00 AM.
Speaker:Uh, I pray the divine office.
Speaker:I pray the rosary and then usually I'll sneak away at some point in the day.
Speaker:To a local church where we have a Eucharistic adoration every day.
Speaker:So I get some time then to which everybody replies that's insane.
Speaker:I could never do that.
Speaker:Well, you know, A great speaker once said that we never get our sherds.
Speaker:We get our musts.
Speaker:You know, we don't.
Speaker:We'd in life.
Speaker:We don't get the things that we should.
Speaker:You know that we think we should get, or should do we
Speaker:get the ones that we must get?
Speaker:I used to say to people that, uh, you know, if you have to get kidney dialysis,
Speaker:you know, you make time for it, right.
Speaker:It's not one of those optional things.
Speaker:And I've had friends that have had to go through that experience.
Speaker:You know, things like kidney dialysis or a non-negotiable outlet.
Speaker:Like if you miss it, then essentially you get incredibly sick and then you may die.
Speaker:So we have these things in our lives.
Speaker:That become musts, you know?
Speaker:And if you look in your own life, you're going to have plenty of those owners.
Speaker:You're gonna have lots of must things that you have must get done.
Speaker:You know, you must turn up for class.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You can't just sit in the faculty lounge or the staff room and
Speaker:read the paper and definitely.
Speaker:You must turn up.
Speaker:Uh, you know, we have certain musts enough families, certain
Speaker:obligations, but we often treat prayer and stillness as a should.
Speaker:You know, it's easy to say.
Speaker:I really should pray more.
Speaker:I really should go and sit in the chapel before I teach each day.
Speaker:I really should do that.
Speaker:But we get overwhelmed by everything else.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What I'm suggesting is it's it's this I've said it many times.
Speaker:It's kind of this divine risk.
Speaker:You have to, you have to take a risk that time spent in
Speaker:stillness, peace and tranquility.
Speaker:And not something that's going to take away from your day and not
Speaker:something that's going to take away and make you more stressed.
Speaker:It will conversantly.
Speaker:Do the exact opposite as a totology, but it will do the exact opposite.
Speaker:And it's not just from a spiritual perspective, there's
Speaker:a huge amount of data, you know?
Speaker:Um, peer reviewed studies of how stillness and deep breathing and silence have a
Speaker:profound effect on human physiology.
Speaker:So we've got the physical scientific aspect, but then of course
Speaker:we have the spiritual aspect.
Speaker:So, what does this look like in practice?
Speaker:It means that you have to negotiate the line between shoulds and musts.
Speaker:That's the first thing you have to do.
Speaker:You have to go.
Speaker:Jonathan.
Speaker:This is nice.
Speaker:It's inspiring.
Speaker:But guess what?
Speaker:You have no idea.
Speaker:I've got to teach six classes.
Speaker:I've got to do this.
Speaker:I've got to do to drop my kids off.
Speaker:And I pick my kids up.
Speaker:I got to go here and go do that.
Speaker:We're all going to have these different pressures on our lives,
Speaker:but it, I look, honestly, I can't go through a day, literally without
Speaker:this time for prayer, I just can't.
Speaker:You see, the rosary has become a very big thing for me.
Speaker:Surprisingly, it's not something that I really grew up with, but I, you
Speaker:know, every day praying the rosary for me becomes a very intercessory thing.
Speaker:So there's a whole bunch of people that are prayed for obviously my own family and
Speaker:my marriage and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:But there's a whole bunch of people that I intercede for.
Speaker:And I, I've got to a point where I'm like, I can't imagine now.
Speaker:Living a day, having not entrusted that day.
Speaker:Two two.
Speaker:To Jesus, to Mary, to St.
Speaker:Joseph.
Speaker:That's just where I've got to.
Speaker:Like, I just can't imagine now doing a day without that.
Speaker:It's just become so central.
Speaker:That's taken a long time, but I guess.
Speaker:What happens is that you, you begin to realize that this
Speaker:time for stillness and prayer.
Speaker:Is it.
Speaker:It shapes you, you become what you do.
Speaker:I mean, that was Aristotle, right?
Speaker:And then the Greek, the classical Greek thought was that you, your
Speaker:character was formed by the actions that you consistently undertook.
Speaker:So, if you stole all the time for the Greeks, you became a thief.
Speaker:That's what you, how did you become a thief where you stole and the Greeks would
Speaker:say, how did you become, you know, how did the courageous person become courageous?
Speaker:And Aristotle would say, well, they did courageous things and
Speaker:slowly became what they did.
Speaker:So as Catholic teachers, if we become people of stillness and contemplation
Speaker:and prayer and intercession, We're going to become that we're going to
Speaker:become this presence of prayer that permeates the school environment.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So in the church documents that it makes it really clear that
Speaker:the thing that makes the Catholic school Catholic is the environment.
Speaker:You know, that it's a distinctive environment.
Speaker:And what is that distinctive environment?
Speaker:Well, the church documents say that the number one distinctive thing
Speaker:about a Catholic school environment.
Speaker:Isn't the religious art.
Speaker:It's not the songs.
Speaker:We might sing it to Lindsay.
Speaker:The Catholic church documents are very clear that the number one aspect
Speaker:of a Catholic school environment is.
Speaker:Drum roll, please.
Speaker:Teachers.
Speaker:It's the teachers, you take the teachers out of that environment.
Speaker:What do you have?
Speaker:You have rooms full of chairs and you have desks and you have.
Speaker:And you could bring anybody else in.
Speaker:But it wouldn't be different.
Speaker:It wouldn't be Catholic.
Speaker:It's Catholic because of the.
Speaker:Of course, we have, you know, many amazing non-Catholic teachers in our schools.
Speaker:But I'm making the point that the more deeply formed, prayerful Catholics
Speaker:that we have in our school, we create a particular kind of environment.
Speaker:So can you imagine that if your school had a whole bunch of people.
Speaker:Who just were people of prayer and intercession.
Speaker:Can you mention that your teaching had different, your teaching
Speaker:would be, if you began to really press into intercessory prayer.
Speaker:For particularly difficult students.
Speaker:Imagine that cause often say it's very hard.
Speaker:To dislike somebody that you're praying for.
Speaker:It's not impossible.
Speaker:That's still happen.
Speaker:But it is hard.
Speaker:To, to really dislike somebody if you're spending time on your
Speaker:knees every day, bring for them.
Speaker:So I often say, think of that most difficult student think of that
Speaker:colleague that you most dislike.
Speaker:But if you spent some time on your knees each day saying Jesus helped me to not,
Speaker:you know, help me to love this person helped me to be patient with this person
Speaker:helped me to see what you see in them.
Speaker:It changes us.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So we started with this quote of, from George's bananas.
Speaker:You owe it to everyone you love.
Speaker:To find tranquility in your busy day.
Speaker:So my friend that might mean getting to school a fraction
Speaker:earlier, so you get 10 minutes, 20 minutes of stillness in the chapel.
Speaker:I use noise, canceling headphones.
Speaker:Everyone thinks.
Speaker:Probably looks strange, but in.
Speaker:In the church where I go for Eucharistic adoration.
Speaker:It's it's awesome.
Speaker:But a lot of people don't know the rules.
Speaker:I haven't, they don't know my rules.
Speaker:My rules are.
Speaker:When you're out Eucharistic adoration, you can't breathe loudly.
Speaker:You can't.
Speaker:And you can't whispery a rosary out loud.
Speaker:You can't do any of that stuff.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You can't that's Jonathan's rules.
Speaker:And you can't shuffle around and make the benches squeak.
Speaker:You can't do that.
Speaker:None of that stop it.
Speaker:Well, you have to do.
Speaker:Is be very quiet and still.
Speaker:But that doesn't happen.
Speaker:So I had noticed can't noise, canceling headphones.
Speaker:And then there's tons of them available these days and they're much cheaper.
Speaker:So, and I use, uh, sometimes I use an app with some background, uh, white noise,
Speaker:so I get deep, quiet, deep stillness.
Speaker:I know you're thinking I'm crazy here, but, uh,
Speaker:I just work with the tools I've got.
Speaker:So find this time for tranquility, you know, just sit in the chapel,
Speaker:maybe duck in there when you've got a free class for 10, 15 minutes.
Speaker:Keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it and just slowly allow it to change
Speaker:you and it'll change your marriages.
Speaker:It'll change your parenting.
Speaker:It'll change you.
Speaker:I, you know, Prayer may not.
Speaker:As mother Theresa said, pray, pray on it.
Speaker:May not always change the exact circumstances of our
Speaker:lives, but it will change us.
Speaker:Okay, I'm done.
Speaker:Housekeeping as always, please hit subscribe.
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Speaker:And, uh, what else?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm on Patrion.
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Speaker:R E O N patrion.com and just do a search Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:You're going to find me there.
Speaker:Otherwise, there'll be links everywhere in these emails.
Speaker:And I'd love your support.
Speaker:The support allows me to get the reading, done the preparation, done, pay for all
Speaker:the tools to put this stuff together.
Speaker:So, um, once again, if you can, um, prayerfully think about
Speaker:that and give me some support on Patrion, that would be awesome.
Speaker:All right, that's it for today, let's get that tranquility.
Speaker:Let's make that risk.
Speaker:Let's take that divine gamble that if we risk being people of prayer, that Jesus
Speaker:is going to more than make it up to us.
Speaker:In multiple ways in how we discharge our vocations.
Speaker:So listen, thanks for what you're doing.
Speaker:As a Catholic teacher, may God richly bless you and your family for your
Speaker:service and love of young people.
Speaker:That's it for me my name's jonathan doyle this has been the catholic
Speaker:teacher daily podcast and i'll have another message for you
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