A world where education is stripped of religious and spiritual meaning quickly becomes a functionalist technocracy where knowledge is place purely at the service of utility and power. In today’s message I want to talk about how the work you do each day has a powerful, transformative and desperately needed impact upon culture.

Transcript
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Well, Hey everybody.

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Jonathan Doyle with you.

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Once again.

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Welcome aboard friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast,

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new listeners, regular listeners.

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Thanks for tuning back in hoping and bringing you some encouragement today

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in this, uh, Unique special vocation.

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What an incredible thing it is that we lose sight of just to be.

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The presence.

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Of Christ in the life of a young person on a daily basis.

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Not perfect, not getting it right.

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And every single interaction.

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But by grace, by faith, by sacrament, by scripture, we slowly grow into the image.

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Of the one that we seek to serve.

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And the one whom we seek to inculcate into the lives of young people.

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That's a good word.

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Isn't it?

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To form, to form other Christs in the lives of young people so that the

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father looks down and sees in his sons and daughters, the image of his son.

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I just jumped straight into the theology there.

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Didn't I.

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And that's good because today we're going to go deep on the

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theology with today's quote.

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And remember if you're not getting the daily quote, please come

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across to one Catholic teacher.com.

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And there's tons of signup boxes there.

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So we can get to the daily quote, or you could just email me direct

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jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com and we'll get you on the list.

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So today,

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I went digging.

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I spent some time as I do when I'm looking for good quotes on the Vatican website.

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Is like.

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You know, it's just like the Vatican website.

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You know, it's like the 1980s called and we'd like their website back.

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It's just, wow.

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It's a, it's probably easier to, harder to navigate than Roman backstreets.

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But anyway,

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Today, uh, I found a great quote from Pope Benedict the 16th.

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And, uh, you know, as some of you would be aware, maybe some of you aren't, you.

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You know, Benedict is, is really a utterly towering theologian.

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Sitting on my desk here in the studio, I've actually got a copy of his Jesus

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of Nazareth, which for me has been a little bit like Stephen Hawking's

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famous book, a brief history of time.

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I don't know how many of you are familiar with that book?

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Uh, from Stephen Hawking, but the joke is that it's the greatest book, never

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read, you know, when it came out.

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Huge numbers of people bought it.

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And, uh, kind of didn't get into it and it sort of sat there.

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So the Pope Benedict books, his book, Jesus of Nazareth is, is different.

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And her putting it in that same kind of unread category, but it's one of

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those books that I've, uh, opened and reopened and reopened multiple times.

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And it's on my list to get all the way through.

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But it's, you know, as a theologian, he's just extraordinary.

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The a, it isn't that interesting, just how God gives men and

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women different vocations.

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Um, you know, he, uh, you know, he was often criticized for not being, you know,

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sort of maybe as warm and fuzzy as people might've liked at key times, but, uh,

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you know, he never wanted to be Pope.

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I mean, I'm not sure how many Pope's do.

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He was a professor.

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He wanted to be left alone to read and study and write.

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So.

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In a funny what God does in our lives.

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I mean, first he gives all of us these incredible gifts.

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And remember that in God's eyes, your gifts.

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I know different to Pope Benedict.

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So it's not as if God goes.

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You know, some of the Trinity's up there saying, you know, when I look at

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Ben victim in how good is he seriously?

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What a theologian.

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And he's looking at us going.

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Yeah.

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You know, they're, they're, they're teaching and it's okay.

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It's not how it works.

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It's fascinating that in God's economy, All the gifts that he gives us.

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I just as precious as, as each others, you know, varying gifts.

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So always remember that that you're called.

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You might be called to be a global theologian.

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I've definitely got listeners who are who've written fantastic books on Catholic

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educational theology and practice.

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But it doesn't matter.

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Because today Pope Benedict is not going to be in your classroom.

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You know, he's, uh, he's in the papal apartments there.

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He's retired.

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He's very old now.

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So he's not going to be having influence on your students today,

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except perhaps through this quote.

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So you're placed in there today.

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And so, uh, in God's eyes, what you're going to do in your classroom today.

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Is as important as entity, any of, you know, what Benedict wrote in his theology.

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Some people find that hard to believe they go.

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Now it's much more important.

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You know, he was writing to the global church.

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I'm just deeply convinced God, doesn't say it that way.

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And one way I try and argue that is I go, you know, I've got three kids.

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And, you know, they all have different talents.

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Right.

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And it's not as if I look at one of my kids, who's might be good at X.

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You know, I'll give you an example.

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I take one of my daughters surfing every Saturday.

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And she's getting really good at it.

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You know, she's physically been strong and, and, uh, she really enjoys it.

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And then other.

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Others of my kids, other of my kids.

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Well, some of my other children.

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I'm not into it.

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They just don't have that particular interest or gift.

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So, but they do other things.

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So do you think I look at one of them and go, well, that's the most amazing gift.

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You're great.

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I love you 10 times more than your brother or sister, because your gift is just

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much, much more interesting and cool.

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Of course I don't, you know, all the parents listening know that if

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you've ever had a child hand, you.

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You know, crayon drawing.

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I mean, did you hand it back and say really?

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That's that's it.

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That's all you have for me.

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Is this.

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Crayon drawing.

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I mean, seriously, go back.

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Start again.

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I want to, I want to see the Sistine chapel ceiling by 5:00 PM.

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We don't do that.

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And I think that, uh, you know, scripture tells us, you know, Jesus is talking

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about, you know, he says, if you've, if you father is wicked, as you are, know

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how to give your children good gifts, how much more will your heavenly father

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give the holy spirit to those who ask?

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So he's in the business of giving gifts.

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And he's not really in the business of ranking them.

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He's just in the business of blessing.

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And he's really excited about the work that you're doing.

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Anyway.

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I digress.

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Huh?

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Regular listeners.

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Now I get a bit excited.

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Sometimes I always come in the studio really early and my caffeine intake is

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usually a peak velocity around this time.

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So, let me share this with you.

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This is from an audience that, um, Pope Benedict gave in, uh,

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on the 25th of April in 2009.

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And he was talking to a large collection of.

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Catholic religious education teachers.

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So listen to this, I'm going to just flesh this out.

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He said, The religious dimension of education is in fact intrinsic to culture.

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It contributes to the overall formation of the person.

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And makes it possible to transform knowledge into wisdom of life.

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Your service, dear friends.

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Fits precisely into this fundamental crossroads.

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Now, like a lot of Benedict's writing, there's so much depth and he I'm just

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going to try and spin through it quickly.

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First line, the religious dimension of education is in fact intrinsic to culture.

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It's essential to culture it's embedded in culture.

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If you remove the religious dimension of education.

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Then education becomes nothing other than a collection of datum.

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And, you know, facts to be mastered and.

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Placed at the service of subduing the world and having power over it.

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And again, that's why we get this very technocratic, functionalist

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society that we live with.

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We live in that is high on pleasure and utility, but low on metaphysical,

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beauty and mystery and wonder.

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So he's reminding us here that.

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That imbuing, our teaching and our subjects with a religious

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dimension of wonder of, or of the awareness of God's gifted gift to us

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changes culture it's central to it.

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So I guess at the simplest level, imagine a culture with no

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metaphysical, um, transcendent, contemplative, Catholic dimension.

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It's a functionalist culture.

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It's a culture it's like Marxist scientific materialism.

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It sees the cosmos is nothing other than a random, uh, arrangement of

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atoms to be used in whatever way.

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Maximizes human utility.

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So we're talking about something different here.

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He says it contributes to the overall formation of the person

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that makes it possible to transform knowledge into wisdom of life.

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So this is basically reminding us that Catholic religious education

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and by religious education.

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It can be just as true for mathematics sciences.

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That we can imbue that religious aspect that what we're doing

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is we're shaping the person.

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And we're helping them take knowledge and facts.

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And transforming those knowledge and facts into a wisdom of life.

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So a way of seeing reality, a way of seeing people, a way

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of seeing the physical cosmos.

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So that, you know, that we that's managing, you know, Catholic scientists

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who have wisdom Catholic men and women.

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In medicine and law and politics who see the world, the knowledge

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that they've gained is formed them into a particular vision of life.

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So he's reminding us in the end here.

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He says, dear friends, this fits precisely into this fundamental crossroads.

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So he's reminding us of this interplay between, uh, education

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and data and a religious element that then shapes culture.

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So.

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Don't you think that's a significant thing to do with your life?

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I think that's an extraordinary thing to do with your life.

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So as you go back into the classroom, Uh, today, tomorrow

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morning, whenever you hearing this.

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The smallest.

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Level of spiritual religious instruction and filtering as you teach.

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You know, if you're teaching science, it's like, isn't it just

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simply teaching younger children.

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Isn't it amazing that God's structured the universe this way?

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Isn't it incredible that he's done this?

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And giving them this constant filter, you know, those of you teaching or

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literature or music, you know, my, my son is really enjoying his, his music at

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school and really likes his music teacher.

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And he's learning a love for music through that.

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And, uh, you know, we're doing stuff at home to reinforce that and teaching

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them about beauty and harmony and music.

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So there's all these opportunities for you out there.

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I'm going to wrap up now because.

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Again, a bit excited and I want to get you out there and get you back into it.

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So listen, thank you so much for what you're doing.

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I say it every day, but being encouraged.

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Be inspired to, uh, to go out there, go deeper into prayer,

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allow the holy spirit to guide this phenomenal work that you're doing.

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And, uh, housekeeping.

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Look, just make sure you've subscribed to the podcast.

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I'd love it.

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If you could share this with some people.

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And, um, yeah, please make sure if you want to subscribe to the daily, just

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email me, jonathan@jonathandoyle.co.

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All right.

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You all right?

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Uh, God bless your friends.

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It's a joy to do this.

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Get out there.

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Allow the holy spirit to just use your powerfully as I'm sure the holy spirit

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already is my name's Jonathan Doyle.

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This has been the Catholic teacher daily podcast.

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And i'll have another message for you tomorrow