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
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan DOR with you.
Speaker:Once again.
Speaker:Welcome aboard to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:All friends, new friends.
Speaker:Welcome aboard.
Speaker:I'm really blessed that some people.
Speaker:Listen, almost every single day.
Speaker:And that's very exciting.
Speaker:I hope that is a blessing to you as you drive to or from work or catch a
Speaker:hovercraft or whatever it is you do to get to your vocation as a Catholic
Speaker:teacher each day and new listeners.
Speaker:Welcome aboard everybody.
Speaker:You, however, you've come across what we're doing here.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker:On this great big adventure of Catholic education around the world.
Speaker:I have a lot of things that I want to share with you today.
Speaker:Actually, I'm going to.
Speaker:Try and keep it to a reasonable time as always, but, uh, today's
Speaker:readings really beautiful, uh, from the readings of the day.
Speaker:And, uh, I think I might've mentioned last week.
Speaker:Make sure you, if you, can you grab yourself a copy
Speaker:of the universe solace app?
Speaker:So it's called universe solace.
Speaker:It's just the most, uh, prodigious really expansive.
Speaker:There's another tautology.
Speaker:I did a totology yesterday.
Speaker:We're back with another one.
Speaker:Uh, it's a wonderful, uh, accessible app that takes us through everything
Speaker:happening on each day of the churches.
Speaker:A year.
Speaker:So often if there's, you know, interesting science that you
Speaker:haven't known before, you'll find them in the universe, Silas app.
Speaker:And it also gives you things like the daily readings, the order of mass,
Speaker:the divine offers all that good stuff.
Speaker:Is there.
Speaker:So today's reading.
Speaker:Uh, in, uh, I think we're in ordinary time, but we are an ordinary time.
Speaker:It's the second week of the divine office, but it's that beautiful follow
Speaker:on yesterday was the beatitudes.
Speaker:Uh, we had the beatitudes yesterday.
Speaker:And last night at dinner with my kids, we, we read those beatitudes
Speaker:and you know, so many of the most brilliant men and women in history have
Speaker:written very deeply on the beatitudes.
Speaker:There's a whole layer of.
Speaker:Extraordinary layers of theological and pastoral depth.
Speaker:And just so typical of Jesus to go on, to turn everything up on its head.
Speaker:And I've always believed that.
Speaker:You know, God's economy, God's way of seeing reality is
Speaker:profoundly different to ours.
Speaker:And of course, as Isaiah tells us that, doesn't it, you know, that.
Speaker:That, uh, as high as the heavens are above the earth as so higher God's
Speaker:ways above ours, but you know, our culture rewards, strength, dominance.
Speaker:Uh, excellence, perfection.
Speaker:And he's Jesus saying that if you're, you know, if you're brokenhearted, if you've
Speaker:suffered, if you know that all you've, all you want is peace or righteousness
Speaker:that you're gonna have your fill.
Speaker:He just changes everything.
Speaker:But today he, of course, is talking about salt and light and great danger
Speaker:of being a Christian of course, is that we hear these stories often from a young
Speaker:age and they lose some of their impact.
Speaker:But the beautiful line in verse, this is Matthew chapter five, verse 16.
Speaker:He says in the same way, let your light shine before men and women,
Speaker:that they may see your good deeds.
Speaker:And praise your father in heaven.
Speaker:So this idea that, uh, that, you know, people should see the presence
Speaker:of Christ in us, and it should lead them to give thanks to God that,
Speaker:uh, he has acted in our lives and is changing the world through us.
Speaker:And many years ago, I spoke to this very wise priest because.
Speaker:Believe it or not, I'm quite introverted.
Speaker:And I love doing these podcasts and I love speaking on stage.
Speaker:Uh, pre COVID, but by nature, I'm pretty introverted, pretty quiet.
Speaker:I'm the kind of person that will often sit back and listen more than I will speak.
Speaker:Ironic that I do a daily podcast.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:But, uh, you know, I sort of said to this priest, I said, you
Speaker:know, I wonder, should I be more.
Speaker:You know, joyful and, and more, you know, just, just more evangelical even.
Speaker:And, uh, cause I think I'd been really impacted by listening to a
Speaker:lot of great speakers and thinking maybe, maybe I should be like that.
Speaker:Remember, you know, God's not a big fan of imitation, so he
Speaker:sort of makes one-offs right.
Speaker:We're all.
Speaker:One-offs.
Speaker:But this priest has sort of said to me, he said, well, you got to be who you are.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You gotta be who you are.
Speaker:And I'm saying this because we're all called to let the light of Christ
Speaker:shine before others, but we're all going to do it in very different ways.
Speaker:Some of us are going to be.
Speaker:You know, the absolute life of the party and Christ will be glorified through that.
Speaker:My youngest daughter is just out there.
Speaker:She is just from the day she was born.
Speaker:And now she's about 10 and she just, I love it a bit.
Speaker:It's just, I get to pick her up, drive her to school and I just best
Speaker:top go to the best parts of the day.
Speaker:The things that come out of her mouth and, uh, you know, God is going to use that.
Speaker:And then my son is in the middle is very calm, very calm, you know?
Speaker:Sort of still waters.
Speaker:So God is going to use all of us in different ways.
Speaker:So allow yourself just to be transformed by the holy spirit.
Speaker:And God is gonna use you in just the way that he wants
Speaker:to use you all it's required.
Speaker:You know, remember that.
Speaker:How many times have I quoted Saint Augustan?
Speaker:When Augustan said he, who made you without your cooperation will not
Speaker:save you without your cooperation.
Speaker:It's a beautiful insight there that God doesn't ask us.
Speaker:If we wanted to exist, that's a, that was a non-negotiable, but he will.
Speaker:Very happily, uh, give us the freedom.
Speaker:To cooperate with what he wants to do in our lives or not.
Speaker:So that's an incredible.
Speaker:Power that God places in our hands, isn't it.
Speaker:But all we have to do is cooperate and he's going to bring about what
Speaker:he had always planned for us in our personalities and our relationships.
Speaker:And, uh, and that's what the science or the science, or just people who
Speaker:for complex reasons of life and birth and circumstance and sin, and
Speaker:grace simply surrendered as fully as they could to the grace of God.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Got to stop turning this into a huge, humble, I got a couple
Speaker:of other things I want to do.
Speaker:Uh, I want to give you the quote.
Speaker:Well, let's do the quote for the day now because it kind of ties into what
Speaker:we've just been talking about with about the light of Christ shining in you.
Speaker:D, uh, today's quote.
Speaker:Is from the inimitable regular listeners know that's one of my favorite words in
Speaker:Nimmitabel incapable of being imitated.
Speaker:Paul Claudel.
Speaker:Wonderful philosopher and a and writer, he said this speak about
Speaker:Christ only when you are asked.
Speaker:But live.
Speaker:So that people speak or people ask about Christ one more time.
Speaker:Let's even get it right.
Speaker:Speak about Christ only when you are asked, but live so
Speaker:that people ask about Christ.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:You can see that, uh, there's there's what he's getting at here is.
Speaker:He's suggesting.
Speaker:I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:You gotta be careful with some nuance here, because I think it's important
Speaker:to speak about Christ sometimes when it's, when it's not popular.
Speaker:But he's saying to us that we need to live in a way that people are curious about
Speaker:the groundedness, the joy, the presence, the peace, the calm that we have.
Speaker:So we speak about Christ only when we are asked, but live
Speaker:so that people actually ask.
Speaker:So that people say, what, what, how, what is it about you what's
Speaker:distinctive what's different.
Speaker:So let's, uh, let's take that quite to heart.
Speaker:Speak about Christ only when you're asked, but live so that people ask about Christ.
Speaker:And again, this is not about striving.
Speaker:The only striving we need to do is, is the striving in prayer
Speaker:and the surrender to grace.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:The last thing I wanted to do today.
Speaker:A little bit controversial.
Speaker:I was reading yesterday at a really interesting article.
Speaker:Uh, from a journalist who.
Speaker:Let me find this exact bits and pieces here that I'm trying to find.
Speaker:Uh, it's over here.
Speaker:This is from an interview with a guy called will Noland.
Speaker:Now will Noland was a very popular teacher at Eaton.
Speaker:And of course, many of you will know, Eaton is.
Speaker:One of the most famous ancient venerable private schools in the world.
Speaker:Uh, and he was actually fired.
Speaker:And it blew into a big storm because he was fired for putting a video up about
Speaker:pushing back against this as aspects of.
Speaker:I guess making boys and men feel that they are all complicit in what is
Speaker:increasingly termed toxic masculinity.
Speaker:So he put up a.
Speaker:A video saying here's all the great things about men.
Speaker:Here's all the fantastic things that men do throughout history.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:And, um, he got fired and it led to, uh, you know, 800 former Etonians
Speaker:requiring asking the headmaster to resign and blew into this big storm.
Speaker:But he had this interesting quote from this interview and, uh, he
Speaker:said this much modern education.
Speaker:Aims at telling students what to think.
Speaker:About various social issues.
Speaker:Rather than teaching them how to think.
Speaker:Subordinating a genuine liberal education to political purposes.
Speaker:So again, regular listeners know this has been a theme for me for many, many years.
Speaker:Um, so let's listen to this quote again, much modern education aims at telling
Speaker:students what to think about various social issues, rather than teaching them
Speaker:how to think subordinating, a genuine liberal education to political purposes.
Speaker:Look, I think that is happening.
Speaker:I don't know how widespread it is at every particular school.
Speaker:Uh, as you listen, you're the expert on what's happening in your own
Speaker:school system, but I think we can all put our grownup pants on and
Speaker:admit that so much education has become highly politicized and sadly.
Speaker:A lot of teachers see it as their role to create.
Speaker:Uh, well to, I guess, to inculcate their own.
Speaker:Social and political insights into the minds of their students.
Speaker:And, uh, I'm not okay with that.
Speaker:I think what we need.
Speaker:Is to preach Christ and the truth and cross crucified and help young
Speaker:people become formed in Christ.
Speaker:And then we're going to let Jesus.
Speaker:Shape.
Speaker:Their vision of the world.
Speaker:I think that's the appropriate response from us as Catholic educators.
Speaker:Uh, because any kind of, you know, many social and political
Speaker:issues are incredibly complex and have all sorts of nuance to them.
Speaker:And I think that, you know, a lot of what's can happen in schools.
Speaker:Is this black and white sort of.
Speaker:This is the issue, and this is what we will all think.
Speaker:And that's not okay.
Speaker:I think we have to have the courage and the humility.
Speaker:As Catholic educators too.
Speaker:To, uh, to stay focused on the mission that Christ gave us,
Speaker:which was to make disciples.
Speaker:You know, he didn't tell us to create party members.
Speaker:He told us to create disciples.
Speaker:So I'm probably gonna lose a few listeners today, but I've just,
Speaker:this is very much on my heart.
Speaker:I think it's, uh, it's a really important thing that.
Speaker:That we preach Christ and we formed disciples and we avoid the temptation.
Speaker:To present.
Speaker:I mean as parents, we, we cop this all the time.
Speaker:You know, kids come home every day and they've had another.
Speaker:You know, per another person, very free in telling them their opinions.
Speaker:And, uh, I just think we've got out of it.
Speaker:I'd love to know what you think.
Speaker:So wherever you're hearing this, you can email me jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com.
Speaker:Uh, you can unsubscribe and never listen to me again, but I just really
Speaker:believe that this is an important thing.
Speaker:And I think for this guy to be fired, you know, he was a very loved teacher.
Speaker:He was doing really good work and to simply be fired for presenting a more
Speaker:balanced perspective is not okay.
Speaker:It's not a good thing.
Speaker:All right friends.
Speaker:So that's as a contentious, as I'm going to get for a while, I'm going to tomorrow.
Speaker:I promise you I'll be back to regular programming.
Speaker:But, uh, one more reminder, Paul Claudel speak about Christ only when you're asked,
Speaker:but live so that people ask about Christ.
Speaker:We have one life.
Speaker:Um, we do not have a doctrine of reincarnation in our Catholic faith.
Speaker:We get one life.
Speaker:And I pray that all of us as Catholic teachers will be seeking
Speaker:the holy spirit and asking the holy spirit to shape and guide us.
Speaker:In our daily vocation so that our students and our colleagues and our, and the
Speaker:parents of our schools see something.
Speaker:Remarkable in us and they want to know more about what it is.
Speaker:So God bless you, everybody.
Speaker:Let's let our light shine before our students and before each other, let's
Speaker:go deeper into prayer and sacrament.
Speaker:Let's uh, you know, and thank you for what you're doing.
Speaker:I say this so often, if no one else tells you today.
Speaker:If you have a bad day, if you've got difficult students, please be assured that
Speaker:what you're doing is incredibly important.
Speaker:It really matters.
Speaker:And it is making a difference.
Speaker:They're the smallest things.
Speaker:Remember God's economy is so different.
Speaker:Just the smallest actions make a huge difference.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Housekeeping, please.
Speaker:If you can do this.
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Speaker:But really the most helpful thing you can do is simply grab this link
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Speaker:That would be awesome.
Speaker:All right everybody god bless you thanks again for what you're doing my
Speaker:name's jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and i'll
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