In today’s message I share a great insight from Saint Augustine about how every Catholic teacher can cooperate more deeply with God and become a deeper and richer channel of grace.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher.
Speaker:Pretty much daily podcast.
Speaker:I do try to get to this as regularly as possible.
Speaker:Cause it's really important.
Speaker:You guys are doing incredible work out there in the broad
Speaker:field of Catholic education.
Speaker:I know I'm talking to principals, bishops, priests, classroom
Speaker:teachers, support teachers, custodians janitors, grounds keepers.
Speaker:People working in the front office, teacher librarians.
Speaker:I know that, ah, this listenership, it's a beautiful gift of such great
Speaker:diversity across the whole range of Catholic education on this big, beautiful
Speaker:planet that we are sharing together.
Speaker:On the journey towards home.
Speaker:It's going to be great.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And finally, get home, get back to the father's house can be so good.
Speaker:Mansions.
Speaker:All of that translation power.
Speaker:We get a mansion who doesn't want to mention, right.
Speaker:Seriously.
Speaker:I don't know, maybe some of the desert fathers, you know, and
Speaker:desert fathers and desert mothers.
Speaker:They like living in.
Speaker:Little caves, but I guess I'll just have to accommodate the mansion in the
Speaker:father's house when they get there.
Speaker:I digress.
Speaker:Welcome aboard, please make sure you've subscribed.
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Speaker:And listen, the bid, the best thing you can do is just, if you like what you hear.
Speaker:Just share it with other Catholic teachers put on your social feeds, send
Speaker:it out to other teachers in your school.
Speaker:It's just beautiful to see it grow.
Speaker:Uh, and there's links here.
Speaker:So in the show notes here on your podcast app, you should be able
Speaker:to find a link to get free access.
Speaker:To the, uh, Catholic teacher formation program called
Speaker:going deeper that we created.
Speaker:And also you can, uh, there's really cool video there, but Hey, you can
Speaker:book me to speak and there should be a link across to the YouTube channel.
Speaker:So there's video versions of this.
Speaker:When I do the Meech day, I record a separate video, separate podcast version.
Speaker:So if you liked the video versions, get, check them out.
Speaker:The link is there.
Speaker:You ready to begin your comfortable?
Speaker:He is sitting somewhere nice.
Speaker:Hopefully you don't have headphones in sitting with you.
Speaker:Feet up on a desk in your classroom where your students bouncing off the walls.
Speaker:I'm sure you're not doing that, but wherever you are.
Speaker:Let's begin my friends today.
Speaker:We're going to talk about a very simple quote from St.
Speaker:Augustine.
Speaker:You know, one of the great things about Saint Augustan is that he just reinforces
Speaker:this wonderful truth that the, the, uh, the gallery of sites, the great panoply
Speaker:of saints in the heavenly realm is made up of the most extraordinarily wonderfully.
Speaker:A collectic diverse mix of humans that you can imagine we've got.
Speaker:Men and women from all sorts of backgrounds and all Gustin as a
Speaker:scientist, one interesting ones.
Speaker:He was.
Speaker:A man of questionable morals, my friends, he was a, he
Speaker:fathered illegitimate children.
Speaker:He was a raging party animal.
Speaker:Until, of course his massive conversion.
Speaker:Um, When he heard that mystical voice said totally Lego.
Speaker:Again, take up and read.
Speaker:And then the words of scripture changed his life and set him
Speaker:on a completely new path.
Speaker:Isn't it.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:How the gospels do that?
Speaker:How the scriptures do that.
Speaker:Uh, be at rest assured that, um, if someone like Senator Gustin can go from a
Speaker:life of elicit behaviors to becoming such a great Saint, then there is hope for me.
Speaker:And there is hope for you.
Speaker:My friend, Sandy Gustin gives us this beautiful quote.
Speaker:He says,
Speaker:He who made you without your cooperation?
Speaker:Will not save you.
Speaker:Without your cooperation.
Speaker:He who made you without your cooperation will not save
Speaker:you without your cooperation.
Speaker:It's a very powerful statement.
Speaker:It's the it's drawing our minds immediately to the one great truth of
Speaker:existence itself that we didn't choose it.
Speaker:God, didn't come to us in the celestial realms before we inhabited our body.
Speaker:And said, Hey, listen, I'm thinking of creating you.
Speaker:What do you think you're interested?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Do you want to just hang out here as a disembodied spirit?
Speaker:In the celestial realms forever, or do you want to be an embodied
Speaker:human soul in enfleshed human soul?
Speaker:We didn't get that choice God in his great wisdom and love will dust into existence
Speaker:in love, through love and for love.
Speaker:Uh, our creation and our destiny and love.
Speaker:So we didn't get to make a choice about that one.
Speaker:Here we are.
Speaker:This is where we find ourselves, but there is a choice according to Augusta
Speaker:that we are going to have to make.
Speaker:We didn't get to choose if God made us, but we do get to choose
Speaker:if we would like God to save us.
Speaker:Well, I guess the first part is the realization that we need to be
Speaker:saved from what, from ourselves.
Speaker:From sin itself from original sin from all of the things that
Speaker:draw us away from relationship.
Speaker:With a heavenly father.
Speaker:So we, if we were able to save ourselves, I figured we would have done it by now.
Speaker:If Adam and Eve had figured out a way to get back into the garden, I'm
Speaker:sure they would've worked it out.
Speaker:Uh, but they didn't.
Speaker:And we that we haven't.
Speaker:You know, Uh, after my Roman holidays or the family, I do a lot of cycling
Speaker:and, uh, there's this road right out into the rain forest up on the coast.
Speaker:And somebody has built this beautiful retreat center.
Speaker:It's really fancy.
Speaker:Um, like, I don't know.
Speaker:It's, it's really impressive.
Speaker:But, uh, it's got, uh, it's called Eden.
Speaker:It's got this massive sign at the front, says Eden.
Speaker:And I remember the first time I sort of like, oh, I've done it.
Speaker:I've found Eden.
Speaker:Is, it looks like eight is a beautiful place.
Speaker:You know, but I'm sure that if I jumped that fence, I wouldn't find
Speaker:myself back in the aid and that we'd all like to get to some, our point
Speaker:is that we can't save ourselves.
Speaker:So, you know, we're invited into this cooperation with God
Speaker:that if we want to be saved,
Speaker:That all we have to do is cooperate.
Speaker:I want to talk about that and its relationship to our Catholic Christian
Speaker:vocations, particularly for most of my listeners in the education space
Speaker:that God is trying to do something with you and through you in the world,
Speaker:you see, God doesn't tend to show up.
Speaker:In physical manifestation and just transform the planet.
Speaker:Uh, you know, you know, I often say that audiences that have.
Speaker:You know, if the Trinity suddenly appeared in full celestial glory in front of you.
Speaker:It's a good chance your brain would explode.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But it has, I had, does God act in the world when he acts through us.
Speaker:He X through us.
Speaker:You know, if a child is struggling,
Speaker:It is your pastoral solicitude, your pastoral presence with
Speaker:them, your conversation, your wisdom, and counsel and guidance.
Speaker:That is the action of God into the world.
Speaker:You know, I was talking to some people on a conference call
Speaker:this morning in the states and.
Speaker:And I was sort of saying, you know, Catholic schools are
Speaker:such a unique communities.
Speaker:They're like ships traveling the great ocean of time.
Speaker:And on that ship, there are these souls and we can create these
Speaker:really beautiful communities.
Speaker:That affect the people in them and affect the wider community.
Speaker:And you see all we need to do.
Speaker:Is cooperate.
Speaker:So, how do we cooperate?
Speaker:Well, I thank the Lord for this beautiful Catholic church we're members of,
Speaker:because we have the helps of the faith.
Speaker:We have the sacraments, we have the magisterium, we have this beautiful
Speaker:wisdom and teaching that's come down for thousands of years, but most importantly,
Speaker:of course we have the sacramental life.
Speaker:We have the life of prayer.
Speaker:We have the scriptures.
Speaker:You see, this is how we cooperate.
Speaker:We make time for God.
Speaker:We make time for God.
Speaker:You know, I sit on this conference call today.
Speaker:You cannot do a supernatural task with only natural resources.
Speaker:Catholic education is a supernatural task.
Speaker:It's not temporal.
Speaker:It's not purely in this realm of existence.
Speaker:It transcends the boundaries of space, time and reality, because we are
Speaker:talking about great spiritual truths.
Speaker:We're talking about revealing the person of Christ.
Speaker:To young people, to their families and to each other, as colleagues on this journey.
Speaker:So my friends.
Speaker:Cooperate.
Speaker:God, didn't ask us if we wanted to be created, but he is asking
Speaker:us if we want it to be saved.
Speaker:If you want to work with him in this role of salvation, his
Speaker:ministry and mission of salvation.
Speaker:So just think about it.
Speaker:Just go, am I cooperating?
Speaker:How am I cooperating?
Speaker:And my praying am I getting to mass?
Speaker:Uh, you know, and it's not ticket box friends, it's not ticket box it's I go
Speaker:to mass because it's the fount of grace.
Speaker:It's the source and the summit of the faith.
Speaker:I go there because that's where the grace is.
Speaker:I say on stage all the time, I'm not, I'm not fancy.
Speaker:I just quite Forrest Gump.
Speaker:I may not be an intelligent man, Jenny, but I know what love is.
Speaker:I was a really bad American accent story on my American listeners.
Speaker:I will do better next time.
Speaker:But you get the point, right?
Speaker:Like that.
Speaker:Um, that I just go with the Gracies and the graces at the
Speaker:holy sacrifice of the mass.
Speaker:So I go there and that's how I try to cooperate.
Speaker:And hopefully those graces flow through.
Speaker:So friends summary.
Speaker:God is looking for your cooperation.
Speaker:He's not looking for your perfection.
Speaker:He's not looking for your brilliance.
Speaker:He is not there hoping.
Speaker:Oh, I look at that.
Speaker:Look at that person.
Speaker:They're so talented.
Speaker:If only they cooperate with me, then I'd be hoping to do more.
Speaker:God's God, he is pure subsistent being.
Speaker:He requires nothing.
Speaker:You cannot add anything to God.
Speaker:He's doing us the favor friends.
Speaker:It's not the other way.
Speaker:So, uh, let's go operate.
Speaker:Let's look for ways to cooperate today, let's be, has to have cooperative
Speaker:hearts and spirits, generous cooperative hearts and spirits.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:God bless you.
Speaker:That's it for today.
Speaker:Get you.
Speaker:Get the YouTube channel.
Speaker:If you haven't seen it yet.
Speaker:Um, You can just, uh, hopefully you can click the link here in the show
Speaker:notes on the podcast app, or you can, uh, I guess if you go on YouTube and
Speaker:search me, I've got two channels.
Speaker:You'll find me there.
Speaker:Um, just look for Catholic teacher, Jonathan Doyle, you
Speaker:should find me on YouTube.
Speaker:Click the link.
Speaker:It's much easier.
Speaker:All right, everybody.
Speaker:God bless you.
Speaker:Um, on Beck speaking, I'm just so pumped.
Speaker:I'm uh, next week I got a big one in here in Australia with a few hundred teachers.
Speaker:We're going to, we're going to talk about how to.
Speaker:Come back from COVID how to rebuild relationships and connections.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, my heart for teachers, I teach on burnout,
Speaker:resilience, faith mission.
Speaker:Uh, and then practical stuff where you really useful tools
Speaker:of peak performance and personal development that we can use to grow.
Speaker:As people so that we can love more and contribute more.
Speaker:So if you'd like me to speak, make sure you click that link and find
Speaker:out more about how you can book me.
Speaker:All right friends.
Speaker:God bless you, everybody.
Speaker:This has been the Catholic teacher, pretty much daily podcast.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:And you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.
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