Today is the feast day of Paul Miki who was one of the great martyrs of Japan. His story can give every Catholic teacher some insight into what it means to find courage and forgiveness through our relationship with Christ.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to the Catholic teacher daily podcast, going out live.
Speaker:Well, I guess it's live and I recorded.
Speaker:It's not live when you hear it necessarily, but a welcome a board,
Speaker:Catholic teachers, principals leaders, priests bishops.
Speaker:Men and women, religious people of Goodwill all around the world.
Speaker:Welcome to this short daily Catholic teacher podcast.
Speaker:We'll be talking about Catholic education, this wonderful journey that you are
Speaker:part of, where you get to introduce the person of Jesus Christ to young people.
Speaker:I had a great weekend.
Speaker:It's Monday here in the studio.
Speaker:But took the family away when sort of spear fishing.
Speaker:My son who's 14.
Speaker:We do a lot of hunting together, but he's got into spear fishing now.
Speaker:And, uh, I had to go.
Speaker:It's just something about Australia.
Speaker:Where we were, uh, we were on the beach, of course, but there's an island
Speaker:just off the coast called Montague island, which is famous for one thing.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:White sharks.
Speaker:And, uh, these great white sharks.
Speaker:They congregate around Montague island because all around that
Speaker:area, there's a lot of seals.
Speaker:We went to see the seals on Saturday morning.
Speaker:It was awesome and beautiful creature.
Speaker:They also happen to be very delicious creature, if you are a
Speaker:great white shark and of course, um,
Speaker:Spear fishing with my son.
Speaker:And before he went in, I sort of said, mate, you know, just, it's just
Speaker:those big dark spaces under the water and going through rocks and things.
Speaker:And he said, dad, I got to speak on.
Speaker:I was like, son.
Speaker:I love you mate, but, uh, I ain't doing nothing against a great white.
Speaker:As you can tell, we didn't get eaten this weekend, which is good.
Speaker:So, uh, we're back, had a good break and excited to be with you today.
Speaker:Friends.
Speaker:I got up early.
Speaker:To pray the divine office.
Speaker:You know, regular listeners know Allah praying the divine office.
Speaker:And, uh, because it grounds me, it just grounds me.
Speaker:I think it's one of the beautiful purposes of liturgical prayer.
Speaker:At least as it just grounds me daily.
Speaker:In my identity.
Speaker:As a, as a, as a Catholic and the beauty of this Catholic faith
Speaker:that, uh, that Christ established.
Speaker:And it's just something I really find beautiful.
Speaker:Another part of it is that, of course, you know, when you're going through
Speaker:the Roman calendar, you find out who the saints are each day and today.
Speaker:I'm going to talk to you briefly about, uh, Paul Mickey.
Speaker:Who of course was a Jesuit martyr.
Speaker:In Japan and the 16th century, it's a really extraordinary era of
Speaker:missionary history that 16th century.
Speaker:Missionary.
Speaker:Sort of explosion in Asia.
Speaker:And of course in Japan and the Jesuit martyrs there.
Speaker:It was, it was tough soil.
Speaker:You know, if you ever find yourself in a classroom,
Speaker:Trying to really share Jesus with young people.
Speaker:And you say to yourself, you know what, this is tough soil.
Speaker:Well, it is tough soil, but it's probably not quite as tough as it was.
Speaker:For Paul Mickey and his companions back in 15.
Speaker:Uh, in the 16th century, he was born in 1562 and his martyrdom took place in 1597.
Speaker:And, uh, just extraordinary, of course, the, the Japanese leader at that time
Speaker:just was very, very suspicious of the Jesuits and suspicious of European,
Speaker:uh, Christian missionary influence.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:I think about Paul Mickey was that he was, uh, he was a Japanese native.
Speaker:And so he was arrested and they forced him to walk.
Speaker:I think it was something like from memory 600 miles, he was arrested and
Speaker:made to walk 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki all the while they beat them
Speaker:and forced them to sing the today.
Speaker:And, um, eventually he was martyred.
Speaker:In a horrific.
Speaker:Uh, tortured horrifically and then martyred with the, with several
Speaker:companions and all the, while he was preaching, they literally crucified him.
Speaker:They put him on a cross.
Speaker:And he kept preaching from the cross forgiving his captors.
Speaker:And, uh, and you know, I just wanted to share a little bit with you because I
Speaker:think we all go through difficult times.
Speaker:Don't we in education, we all go through times of hardship.
Speaker:And different kinds of persecution.
Speaker:I think every Catholic teacher at some time experiences, uh, at least, you
Speaker:know, some sense of persecution, whether it's a misunderstanding with parents or.
Speaker:From leadership or from other colleagues, or even from students there's times
Speaker:when, you know, our hearts are in the right place, but we experience some
Speaker:kind of resistance or rejection from because of our love for the faith and
Speaker:our desire to share it with young people.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:We're not in the realm of martyrs like Paul Mickey, but I think there
Speaker:is a martyrdom at the moment, I think for really committed Catholic
Speaker:teachers, Catholic teachers that are counter-cultural, that are out
Speaker:there trying to share the faith that are working hard day in, day out.
Speaker:To evangelize young people.
Speaker:It is not an easy time to do that in history.
Speaker:I mean, you can walk into a classroom, especially in say secular education.
Speaker:You can pretty much say anything you want.
Speaker:You know, you can say the moon's made a cheese friends and we're
Speaker:all going to stop believing that.
Speaker:And everyone will probably clap and you get promoted, but if you walk into
Speaker:a classroom and speak about the great truths of the cosmos itself, our eternal
Speaker:destiny, the love that the father God has for every single one of us.
Speaker:It can be harder than it has been a different time.
Speaker:So today, My prayer for you as a Catholic educator, as you will draw upon.
Speaker:The great courage of the martyrs of our faith.
Speaker:You know, we have so many of them don't we, but, um, today Paul Mickey,
Speaker:particularly, we asked for his prayers for us in this journey of Catholic education.
Speaker:We ask that.
Speaker:That the holy spirit would kind of give us that sort of courage.
Speaker:I mean, think about it.
Speaker:This guy literally had to walk 600 miles, 960 kilometers.
Speaker:And, you know, beaten and tortured the whole way and then died horrifically,
Speaker:but still chose forgiveness.
Speaker:That's another part of his witness, right?
Speaker:Forgiveness.
Speaker:Th it, you know, is there, is, is that something that's relevant
Speaker:for you to in Catholic education?
Speaker:Because when you go through misunderstanding or you get
Speaker:hurt, forgiveness is hard, right?
Speaker:But I think it poor Mickey can speak.
Speaker:Forgiveness from the cross.
Speaker:W E when he's being tortured horrendously, then let's pray that week too.
Speaker:From his example, from his modeling can find a way to forgive
Speaker:those colleagues, those leaders, those even students and parents.
Speaker:That have maybe treated us unfairly at times.
Speaker:So isn't this, this is the beauty of the science.
Speaker:They teach us so much.
Speaker:They teach us about courage.
Speaker:They teach us about, you know, love of the faith and refusing to bend
Speaker:under pressure, but they also teach us about forgiveness and love.
Speaker:And he kept preaching that gospel.
Speaker:He kept preaching to young people.
Speaker:Preaching to anybody that would listen.
Speaker:He made so many converts among his own native Japanese.
Speaker:And of course that's what got him into trouble in the end.
Speaker:So friends, that's it for today.
Speaker:Let's draw upon that ministry.
Speaker:Let's draw upon that witness that he provided for us.
Speaker:Uh, housekeeping from me, please make sure you've subscribed as always.
Speaker:I'd love.
Speaker:If you could share this with other teachers and you will find, if you're
Speaker:looking, you will find a link here.
Speaker:Where you can book a free 30 minute coaching call with me.
Speaker:If you're in Catholic leadership, if you're running a school and you want
Speaker:help growing that school, working on systems, challenges, problems,
Speaker:I've had the pleasure of coaching Catholic executives all over the world.
Speaker:So I really want to bring that into the Catholic ed education space.
Speaker:So reach out.
Speaker:If you want to grab a free call, we can talk about the challenges
Speaker:you're facing in your school and how we can get you moving forward.
Speaker:So that there'll be a link there for that.
Speaker:If you can't find it.
Speaker:Email me, Jonathan at Jonathan.
Speaker:Um, since the Elmont jonathon@onecatholicteacher.com
Speaker:jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com, they'll be a bunch of other links.
Speaker:You can get free access to the, uh, to the going deeper teacher formation program.
Speaker:It's all there.
Speaker:God bless everybody.
Speaker:Hope.
Speaker:This has been a blessing to you.
Speaker:Some encouragement for you in this crucial, precious
Speaker:work you do every single day.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:Get out there, get amongst it, preach the gospel, be the presence
Speaker:and fragrance of Christ to every young person you encounter.
Speaker:And i'm going to have another message for you tomorrow
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