Paul VI once commented that people listen to witnesses more than they listen to those who simply speak about something they have heard elsewhere.

In today’s episode I want to share several important insights about what it means to be a genuine, daily witness to the impact that Jesus has had upon our lives.

Transcript
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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan DOR with you.

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Once again.

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Welcome aboard to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.

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All friends, new friends.

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Welcome aboard.

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I'm really blessed that some people.

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Listen, almost every single day.

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And that's very exciting.

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I hope that is a blessing to you as you drive to or from work or catch a

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hovercraft or whatever it is you do to get to your vocation as a Catholic

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teacher each day and new listeners.

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Welcome aboard everybody.

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You, however, you've come across what we're doing here.

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Thank you for joining us.

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On this great big adventure of Catholic education around the world.

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I have a lot of things that I want to share with you today.

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Actually, I'm going to.

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Try and keep it to a reasonable time as always, but, uh, today's

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readings really beautiful, uh, from the readings of the day.

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And, uh, I think I might've mentioned last week.

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Make sure you, if you, can you grab yourself a copy

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of the universe solace app?

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So it's called universe solace.

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It's just the most, uh, prodigious really expansive.

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There's another tautology.

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I did a totology yesterday.

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We're back with another one.

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Uh, it's a wonderful, uh, accessible app that takes us through everything

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happening on each day of the churches.

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A year.

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So often if there's, you know, interesting science that you

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haven't known before, you'll find them in the universe, Silas app.

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And it also gives you things like the daily readings, the order of mass,

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the divine offers all that good stuff.

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Is there.

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So today's reading.

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Uh, in, uh, I think we're in ordinary time, but we are an ordinary time.

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It's the second week of the divine office, but it's that beautiful follow

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on yesterday was the beatitudes.

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Uh, we had the beatitudes yesterday.

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And last night at dinner with my kids, we, we read those beatitudes

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and you know, so many of the most brilliant men and women in history have

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written very deeply on the beatitudes.

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There's a whole layer of.

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Extraordinary layers of theological and pastoral depth.

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And just so typical of Jesus to go on, to turn everything up on its head.

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And I've always believed that.

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You know, God's economy, God's way of seeing reality is

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profoundly different to ours.

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And of course, as Isaiah tells us that, doesn't it, you know, that.

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That, uh, as high as the heavens are above the earth as so higher God's

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ways above ours, but you know, our culture rewards, strength, dominance.

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Uh, excellence, perfection.

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And he's Jesus saying that if you're, you know, if you're brokenhearted, if you've

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suffered, if you know that all you've, all you want is peace or righteousness

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that you're gonna have your fill.

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He just changes everything.

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But today he, of course, is talking about salt and light and great danger

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of being a Christian of course, is that we hear these stories often from a young

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age and they lose some of their impact.

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But the beautiful line in verse, this is Matthew chapter five, verse 16.

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He says in the same way, let your light shine before men and women,

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that they may see your good deeds.

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And praise your father in heaven.

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So this idea that, uh, that, you know, people should see the presence

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of Christ in us, and it should lead them to give thanks to God that,

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uh, he has acted in our lives and is changing the world through us.

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And many years ago, I spoke to this very wise priest because.

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Believe it or not, I'm quite introverted.

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And I love doing these podcasts and I love speaking on stage.

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Uh, pre COVID, but by nature, I'm pretty introverted, pretty quiet.

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I'm the kind of person that will often sit back and listen more than I will speak.

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Ironic that I do a daily podcast.

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I get it.

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But, uh, you know, I sort of said to this priest, I said, you

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know, I wonder, should I be more.

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You know, joyful and, and more, you know, just, just more evangelical even.

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And, uh, cause I think I'd been really impacted by listening to a

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lot of great speakers and thinking maybe, maybe I should be like that.

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Remember, you know, God's not a big fan of imitation, so he

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sort of makes one-offs right.

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We're all.

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One-offs.

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But this priest has sort of said to me, he said, well, you got to be who you are.

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Right.

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You gotta be who you are.

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And I'm saying this because we're all called to let the light of Christ

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shine before others, but we're all going to do it in very different ways.

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Some of us are going to be.

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You know, the absolute life of the party and Christ will be glorified through that.

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My youngest daughter is just out there.

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She is just from the day she was born.

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And now she's about 10 and she just, I love it a bit.

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It's just, I get to pick her up, drive her to school and I just best

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top go to the best parts of the day.

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The things that come out of her mouth and, uh, you know, God is going to use that.

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And then my son is in the middle is very calm, very calm, you know?

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Sort of still waters.

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So God is going to use all of us in different ways.

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So allow yourself just to be transformed by the holy spirit.

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And God is gonna use you in just the way that he wants

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to use you all it's required.

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You know, remember that.

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How many times have I quoted Saint Augustan?

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When Augustan said he, who made you without your cooperation will not

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save you without your cooperation.

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It's a beautiful insight there that God doesn't ask us.

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If we wanted to exist, that's a, that was a non-negotiable, but he will.

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Very happily, uh, give us the freedom.

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To cooperate with what he wants to do in our lives or not.

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So that's an incredible.

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Power that God places in our hands, isn't it.

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But all we have to do is cooperate and he's going to bring about what

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he had always planned for us in our personalities and our relationships.

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And, uh, and that's what the science or the science, or just people who

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for complex reasons of life and birth and circumstance and sin, and

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grace simply surrendered as fully as they could to the grace of God.

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All right.

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Got to stop turning this into a huge, humble, I got a couple

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of other things I want to do.

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Uh, I want to give you the quote.

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Well, let's do the quote for the day now because it kind of ties into what

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we've just been talking about with about the light of Christ shining in you.

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D, uh, today's quote.

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Is from the inimitable regular listeners know that's one of my favorite words in

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Nimmitabel incapable of being imitated.

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Paul Claudel.

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Wonderful philosopher and a and writer, he said this speak about

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Christ only when you are asked.

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But live.

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So that people speak or people ask about Christ one more time.

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Let's even get it right.

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Speak about Christ only when you are asked, but live so

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that people ask about Christ.

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So.

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You can see that, uh, there's there's what he's getting at here is.

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He's suggesting.

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I'm not entirely sure.

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I.

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You gotta be careful with some nuance here, because I think it's important

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to speak about Christ sometimes when it's, when it's not popular.

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But he's saying to us that we need to live in a way that people are curious about

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the groundedness, the joy, the presence, the peace, the calm that we have.

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So we speak about Christ only when we are asked, but live

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so that people actually ask.

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So that people say, what, what, how, what is it about you what's

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distinctive what's different.

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So let's, uh, let's take that quite to heart.

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Speak about Christ only when you're asked, but live so that people ask about Christ.

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And again, this is not about striving.

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The only striving we need to do is, is the striving in prayer

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and the surrender to grace.

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All right.

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The last thing I wanted to do today.

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A little bit controversial.

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I was reading yesterday at a really interesting article.

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Uh, from a journalist who.

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Let me find this exact bits and pieces here that I'm trying to find.

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Uh, it's over here.

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This is from an interview with a guy called will Noland.

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Now will Noland was a very popular teacher at Eaton.

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And of course, many of you will know, Eaton is.

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One of the most famous ancient venerable private schools in the world.

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Uh, and he was actually fired.

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And it blew into a big storm because he was fired for putting a video up about

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pushing back against this as aspects of.

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I guess making boys and men feel that they are all complicit in what is

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increasingly termed toxic masculinity.

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So he put up a.

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A video saying here's all the great things about men.

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Here's all the fantastic things that men do throughout history.

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And.

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And, um, he got fired and it led to, uh, you know, 800 former Etonians

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requiring asking the headmaster to resign and blew into this big storm.

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But he had this interesting quote from this interview and, uh, he

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said this much modern education.

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Aims at telling students what to think.

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About various social issues.

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Rather than teaching them how to think.

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Subordinating a genuine liberal education to political purposes.

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So again, regular listeners know this has been a theme for me for many, many years.

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Um, so let's listen to this quote again, much modern education aims at telling

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students what to think about various social issues, rather than teaching them

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how to think subordinating, a genuine liberal education to political purposes.

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Look, I think that is happening.

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I don't know how widespread it is at every particular school.

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Uh, as you listen, you're the expert on what's happening in your own

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school system, but I think we can all put our grownup pants on and

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admit that so much education has become highly politicized and sadly.

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A lot of teachers see it as their role to create.

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Uh, well to, I guess, to inculcate their own.

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Social and political insights into the minds of their students.

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And, uh, I'm not okay with that.

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I think what we need.

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Is to preach Christ and the truth and cross crucified and help young

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people become formed in Christ.

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And then we're going to let Jesus.

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Shape.

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Their vision of the world.

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I think that's the appropriate response from us as Catholic educators.

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Uh, because any kind of, you know, many social and political

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issues are incredibly complex and have all sorts of nuance to them.

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And I think that, you know, a lot of what's can happen in schools.

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Is this black and white sort of.

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This is the issue, and this is what we will all think.

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And that's not okay.

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I think we have to have the courage and the humility.

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As Catholic educators too.

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To, uh, to stay focused on the mission that Christ gave us,

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which was to make disciples.

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You know, he didn't tell us to create party members.

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He told us to create disciples.

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So I'm probably gonna lose a few listeners today, but I've just,

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this is very much on my heart.

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I think it's, uh, it's a really important thing that.

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That we preach Christ and we formed disciples and we avoid the temptation.

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To present.

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I mean as parents, we, we cop this all the time.

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You know, kids come home every day and they've had another.

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You know, per another person, very free in telling them their opinions.

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And, uh, I just think we've got out of it.

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I'd love to know what you think.

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So wherever you're hearing this, you can email me jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com.

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Uh, you can unsubscribe and never listen to me again, but I just really

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believe that this is an important thing.

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And I think for this guy to be fired, you know, he was a very loved teacher.

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He was doing really good work and to simply be fired for presenting a more

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balanced perspective is not okay.

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It's not a good thing.

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All right friends.

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So that's as a contentious, as I'm going to get for a while, I'm going to tomorrow.

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I promise you I'll be back to regular programming.

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But, uh, one more reminder, Paul Claudel speak about Christ only when you're asked,

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but live so that people ask about Christ.

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We have one life.

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Um, we do not have a doctrine of reincarnation in our Catholic faith.

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We get one life.

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And I pray that all of us as Catholic teachers will be seeking

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the holy spirit and asking the holy spirit to shape and guide us.

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In our daily vocation so that our students and our colleagues and our, and the

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parents of our schools see something.

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Remarkable in us and they want to know more about what it is.

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So God bless you, everybody.

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Let's let our light shine before our students and before each other, let's

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go deeper into prayer and sacrament.

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Let's uh, you know, and thank you for what you're doing.

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I say this so often, if no one else tells you today.

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If you have a bad day, if you've got difficult students, please be assured that

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what you're doing is incredibly important.

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It really matters.

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And it is making a difference.

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They're the smallest things.

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Remember God's economy is so different.

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Just the smallest actions make a huge difference.

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All right.

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That's it.

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Housekeeping, please.

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If you can do this.

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So I'd love your support on Patrion.

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If you're a regular listener, you'll see the links.

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But, uh, Patrion your support there, whether it's a dollar.

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Or more or lots more is a great way to just support what we're

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trying to do here and make sure that I can get to is out every day.

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So please go to patrion.com to a search for Jonathan Doyle,

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and that would be fantastic.

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You can support me there.

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Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review.

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But really the most helpful thing you can do is simply grab this link

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wherever you're hearing it and share this with a few other teachers.

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That would be awesome.

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All right everybody god bless you thanks again for what you're doing my

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