Being The Light Of Christ In A Catholic School

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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.

Author

Jonathan Doyle is an international speaker, author, businessman and executive coach who has spoken around the world to more than 400,000 people on topics related to personal development, peak performance, leadership, Catholic school evangelisation, relationships and much more.

His recent keynote addresses include the NCEA National Convention in St. Louis Missouri to 10,000 delegates and he is a frequent keynote speaker in the US, Asia and Europe.

He is also the founder of an influential education and media business that delivers training content to hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals around the world on a weekly basis.

Jonathan holds an undergraduate degree in education from the University of Canberra, a Masters Degree in Leadership and Management from the University of Newcastle and has also undertaken post-graduate study in philosophical anthropology.

He is the author of numerous books on relationships and peak performance and each day shares these same ideas with a large global audience via The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle.

Make sure you grab a copy of my new book Finishing Strong. Just click the book image on the left and it will take you straight there.

Finishing Strong is a loud and clear call for every young person to make the very best of their final years of school. Based on hundreds of seminars around the world to a huge number of students Jonathan Doyle offers powerful, practical advice that can make a major difference.

Each chapter offers inspiring stories, clear principles and actionable steps for identifying and moving forward in study, life, friendships and each key area of life.

Jonathan also includes journal questions and guided reflections at the end of each chapter to maximise learning and ensure the ideas and principles can be made real, personal and achievable.

If you want to help your child or students make the very best of their final years of high school then it;s time to help them finish strong!

TRANSCRIPT

📍 Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you. Once again. Welcome aboard to the Catholic teacher daily podcast. All friends, new friends. Welcome aboard. I’m really blessed that some people. Listen, almost every single day. And that’s very exciting. I hope that is a blessing to you as you drive to or from work or catch a hovercraft or whatever it is you do to get to your vocation as a Catholic teacher each day and new listeners. Welcome aboard everybody. You, however, you’ve come across what we’re doing here. Thank you for joining us.

On this great big adventure of Catholic education around the world. I have a lot of things that I want to share with you today. Actually, I’m going to. Try and keep it to a reasonable time as always, but, uh, today’s readings really beautiful, uh, from the readings of the day. And, uh, I think I might’ve mentioned last week. Make sure you, if you, can you grab yourself a copy of the universe solace app?

So it’s called universe solace. It’s just the most, uh, prodigious really expansive. There’s another tautology. I did a totology yesterday. We’re back with another one. Uh, it’s a wonderful, uh, accessible app that takes us through everything happening on each day of the churches. A year. So often if there’s, you know, interesting science that you haven’t known before, you’ll find them in the universe, Silas app. And it also gives you things like the daily readings, the order of mass, the divine offers all that good stuff. Is there.

So today’s reading. Uh, in, uh, I think we’re in ordinary time, but we are an ordinary time. It’s the second week of the divine office, but it’s that beautiful follow on yesterday was the beatitudes. Uh, we had the beatitudes yesterday. And last night at dinner with my kids, we, we read those beatitudes and you know, so many of the most brilliant men and women in history have written very deeply on the beatitudes. There’s a whole layer of.

Extraordinary layers of theological and pastoral depth. And just so typical of Jesus to go on, to turn everything up on its head. And I’ve always believed that. You know, God’s economy, God’s way of seeing reality is profoundly different to ours. And of course, as Isaiah tells us that, doesn’t it, you know, that.

That, uh, as high as the heavens are above the earth as so higher God’s ways above ours, but you know, our culture rewards, strength, dominance. Uh, excellence, perfection. And he’s Jesus saying that if you’re, you know, if you’re brokenhearted, if you’ve suffered, if you know that all you’ve, all you want is peace or righteousness that you’re gonna have your fill. He just changes everything. But today he, of course, is talking about salt and light and great danger of being a Christian of course, is that we hear these stories often from a young age and they lose some of their impact. But the beautiful line in verse, this is Matthew chapter five, verse 16.

He says in the same way, let your light shine before men and women, that they may see your good deeds. And praise your father in heaven. So this idea that, uh, that, you know, people should see the presence of Christ in us, and it should lead them to give thanks to God that, uh, he has acted in our lives and is changing the world through us.

And many years ago, I spoke to this very wise priest because. Believe it or not, I’m quite introverted. And I love doing these podcasts and I love speaking on stage. Uh, pre COVID, but by nature, I’m pretty introverted, pretty quiet. I’m the kind of person that will often sit back and listen more than I will speak. Ironic that I do a daily podcast. I get it.

But, uh, you know, I sort of said to this priest, I said, you know, I wonder, should I be more. You know, joyful and, and more, you know, just, just more evangelical even. And, uh, cause I think I’d been really impacted by listening to a lot of great speakers and thinking maybe, maybe I should be like that.

Remember, you know, God’s not a big fan of imitation, so he sort of makes one-offs right. We’re all. One-offs. But this priest has sort of said to me, he said, well, you got to be who you are. Right. You gotta be who you are. And I’m saying this because we’re all called to let the light of Christ shine before others, but we’re all going to do it in very different ways. Some of us are going to be.

You know, the absolute life of the party and Christ will be glorified through that. My youngest daughter is just out there. She is just from the day she was born. And now she’s about 10 and she just, I love it a bit. It’s just, I get to pick her up, drive her to school and I just best top go to the best parts of the day.

The things that come out of her mouth and, uh, you know, God is going to use that. And then my son is in the middle is very calm, very calm, you know? Sort of still waters. So God is going to use all of us in different ways. So allow yourself just to be transformed by the holy spirit. And God is gonna use you in just the way that he wants to use you all it’s required. You know, remember that. How many times have I quoted Saint Augustan? When Augustan said he, who made you without your cooperation will not save you without your cooperation.

It’s a beautiful insight there that God doesn’t ask us. If we wanted to exist, that’s a, that was a non-negotiable, but he will. Very happily, uh, give us the freedom. To cooperate with what he wants to do in our lives or not. So that’s an incredible. Power that God places in our hands, isn’t it. But all we have to do is cooperate and he’s going to bring about what he had always planned for us in our personalities and our relationships.

And, uh, and that’s what the science or the science, or just people who for complex reasons of life and birth and circumstance and sin, and grace simply surrendered as fully as they could to the grace of God. All right. Got to stop turning this into a huge, humble, I got a couple of other things I want to do.

Uh, I want to give you the quote. Well, let’s do the quote for the day now because it kind of ties into what we’ve just been talking about with about the light of Christ shining in you. D, uh, today’s quote. Is from the inimitable regular listeners know that’s one of my favorite words in Nimmitabel incapable of being imitated. Paul Claudel.

Wonderful philosopher and a and writer, he said this speak about Christ only when you are asked. But live. So that people speak or people ask about Christ one more time. Let’s even get it right. Speak about Christ only when you are asked, but live so that people ask about Christ. So. You can see that, uh, there’s there’s what he’s getting at here is.

He’s suggesting. I’m not entirely sure. I. You gotta be careful with some nuance here, because I think it’s important to speak about Christ sometimes when it’s, when it’s not popular. But he’s saying to us that we need to live in a way that people are curious about the groundedness, the joy, the presence, the peace, the calm that we have.

So we speak about Christ only when we are asked, but live so that people actually ask. So that people say, what, what, how, what is it about you what’s distinctive what’s different. So let’s, uh, let’s take that quite to heart. Speak about Christ only when you’re asked, but live so that people ask about Christ.

And again, this is not about striving. The only striving we need to do is, is the striving in prayer and the surrender to grace. All right. The last thing I wanted to do today. A little bit controversial. I was reading yesterday at a really interesting article. Uh, from a journalist who. Let me find this exact bits and pieces here that I’m trying to find. Uh, it’s over here.

This is from an interview with a guy called will Noland. Now will Noland was a very popular teacher at Eaton. And of course, many of you will know, Eaton is. One of the most famous ancient venerable private schools in the world. Uh, and he was actually fired. And it blew into a big storm because he was fired for putting a video up about pushing back against this as aspects of.

I guess making boys and men feel that they are all complicit in what is increasingly termed toxic masculinity. So he put up a. A video saying here’s all the great things about men. Here’s all the fantastic things that men do throughout history. And. And, um, he got fired and it led to, uh, you know, 800 former Etonians requiring asking the headmaster to resign and blew into this big storm. But he had this interesting quote from this interview and, uh, he said this much modern education.

Aims at telling students what to think. About various social issues. Rather than teaching them how to think. Subordinating a genuine liberal education to political purposes. So again, regular listeners know this has been a theme for me for many, many years. Um, so let’s listen to this quote again, much modern education aims at telling students what to think about various social issues, rather than teaching them how to think subordinating, a genuine liberal education to political purposes.

Look, I think that is happening. I don’t know how widespread it is at every particular school. Uh, as you listen, you’re the expert on what’s happening in your own school system, but I think we can all put our grownup pants on and admit that so much education has become highly politicized and sadly.

A lot of teachers see it as their role to create. Uh, well to, I guess, to inculcate their own. Social and political insights into the minds of their students. And, uh, I’m not okay with that. I think what we need. Is to preach Christ and the truth and cross crucified and help young people become formed in Christ. And then we’re going to let Jesus.

Shape. Their vision of the world. I think that’s the appropriate response from us as Catholic educators. Uh, because any kind of, you know, many social and political issues are incredibly complex and have all sorts of nuance to them. And I think that, you know, a lot of what’s can happen in schools. Is this black and white sort of.

This is the issue, and this is what we will all think. And that’s not okay. I think we have to have the courage and the humility. As Catholic educators too. To, uh, to stay focused on the mission that Christ gave us, which was to make disciples. You know, he didn’t tell us to create party members. He told us to create disciples. So I’m probably gonna lose a few listeners today, but I’ve just, this is very much on my heart. I think it’s, uh, it’s a really important thing that.

That we preach Christ and we formed disciples and we avoid the temptation. To present. I mean as parents, we, we cop this all the time. You know, kids come home every day and they’ve had another. You know, per another person, very free in telling them their opinions. And, uh, I just think we’ve got out of it. I’d love to know what you think. So wherever you’re hearing this, you can email me jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com.

Uh, you can unsubscribe and never listen to me again, but I just really believe that this is an important thing. And I think for this guy to be fired, you know, he was a very loved teacher. He was doing really good work and to simply be fired for presenting a more balanced perspective is not okay. It’s not a good thing.

All right friends. So that’s as a contentious, as I’m going to get for a while, I’m going to tomorrow. I promise you I’ll be back to regular programming. But, uh, one more reminder, Paul Claudel speak about Christ only when you’re asked, but live so that people ask about Christ. We have one life. Um, we do not have a doctrine of reincarnation in our Catholic faith. We get one life.

And I pray that all of us as Catholic teachers will be seeking the holy spirit and asking the holy spirit to shape and guide us. In our daily vocation so that our students and our colleagues and our, and the parents of our schools see something. Remarkable in us and they want to know more about what it is.

So God bless you, everybody. Let’s let our light shine before our students and before each other, let’s go deeper into 📍 prayer and sacrament. Let’s uh, you know, and thank you for what you’re doing. I say this so often, if no one else tells you today. If you have a bad day, if you’ve got difficult students, please be assured that what you’re doing is incredibly important. It really matters.

And it is making a difference. They’re the smallest things. Remember God’s economy is so different. Just the smallest actions make a huge difference. All right. That’s it. Housekeeping, please. If you can do this. So I’d love your support on Patrion. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll see the links.

But, uh, Patrion your support there, whether it’s a dollar. Or more or lots more is a great way to just support what we’re trying to do here and make sure that I can get to is out every day. So please go to patrion.com to a search for Jonathan Doyle, and that would be fantastic. You can support me there.

Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review. But really the most helpful thing you can do is simply grab this link wherever you’re hearing it and share this with a few other teachers. That would be awesome. All right everybody god bless you thanks again for what you’re doing my name’s jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and i’ll have another message for you tomorrow