Welcome, Catholic teachers, to an episode that celebrates the profound vocation entrusted to us and invites us to recognize the divine purpose behind our unique placement in the lives of our students. In this enlightening podcast, we delve into the importance of our calling as Catholic teachers and the incredible opportunity it presents to love and impact lives, even amidst challenges.
Join us as we explore the sacredness of our vocation, understanding that God has intentionally placed us in our exact circumstances as part of His divine plan. It’s time to discover how our role as Catholic teachers is not merely a profession but a calling—an invitation to be vessels of God’s love and mercy in the lives of our students.
In this episode, we delve into the transformative power of love, even when faced with difficult individuals or challenging situations. As educators, we encounter diverse personalities, backgrounds, and struggles among our students. Yet, within the context of our vocation, we have the extraordinary opportunity to extend Christ’s love to each and every person, no matter how challenging or resistant they may seem.
Today I want to explore practical ways to cultivate a spirit of love and compassion within our classrooms. It’s time to discover strategies for fostering a Christ-centred environment, where students feel seen, heard, and valued as unique individuals created in the image of God.
This episode serves as a gentle reminder that our vocation as Catholic teachers is not without purpose. Each interaction, each lesson, and each act of kindness is an opportunity to shape lives and inspire hearts. Through the lens of faith, we’ll explore how God’s providence has carefully placed us in the lives of our students, entrusting us with the responsibility to guide, mentor, and love them unconditionally.
Join me as we embrace the divine call on our lives, recognizing that our role as Catholic teachers is a sacred mission—an invitation to be instruments of God’s grace and agents of transformation in the lives of our students. Together, let us rise above the challenges, lean into the power of love, and leave an indelible mark on the hearts and souls entrusted to our care.
Tune in to this podcast episode, “Embracing the Divine Call: Our Vocation as Catholic Teachers and the Power of Love,” and allow the profound realization of your purpose as a Catholic teacher to ignite a renewed passion within you. Together, let us embody the love of Christ and shine as beacons of hope in the lives of our students, knowing that God has placed us exactly where we need to be.
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Transcript
Well, hello.
Speaker:My friends.
Speaker:Welcome to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:My name is Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:I'm glad you're here.
Speaker:I want to thank you for the amazing work you're doing in Catholic education.
Speaker:Every single day fighting the good fight preaching Christ, welcome or unwelcome.
Speaker:Modeling the gospel through every aspect of your life, imperfect as you are.
Speaker:And as imperfect as I am, grace sustains as graceful carriers.
Speaker:We're here for a reason.
Speaker:You're here for a reason.
Speaker:And I want to talk to you today about a beautiful quote from a guy called father
Speaker:Paul do may some of those cool French names, D U M a I S, where you get disease.
Speaker:Domain.
Speaker:I will have the fromage, sorry to all my French listeners.
Speaker:I don't have any French listeners.
Speaker:I've got please self identify.
Speaker:You don't want a French listeners, please?
Speaker:Don't be offended.
Speaker:On my very poor.
Speaker:Impersonation of saying the word cheese in French.
Speaker:Welcome to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:My friend, listen to this beautiful quote.
Speaker:Father, Paul says this, your vocation.
Speaker:Is that vocation?
Speaker:That will cause you.
Speaker:To love.
Speaker:The most, your vocation.
Speaker:Is that vocation, which will cause you to love the most.
Speaker:Friends.
Speaker:I've had the pleasure of speaking around the world to probably several
Speaker:hundred thousand Catholic teachers now.
Speaker:And one of the things I always talk about is we do a session on vacation.
Speaker:We talk deeply about this concept of vocation.
Speaker:To be called out to be sent forth into Missio DEI into the
Speaker:mission, the sending of God.
Speaker:But let's talk a little bit about this vocational concept vocation 1 0 1.
Speaker:We have to understand the Catholic education is not a job.
Speaker:Um, it is beyond that it is a vocation.
Speaker:It is a calling.
Speaker:So I'm always trying to reposition Catholic teachers from the idea
Speaker:that, well, I chose this thing because we have good holidays and
Speaker:I kinda like it and kids are okay.
Speaker:And, you know, my, I work with some good people and it's all good.
Speaker:As opposed to you were specifically and deliberately called into.
Speaker:A vocation of Ocado called into something.
Speaker:And that's a real access point for me.
Speaker:It's a real pivot point for me, that changes just about
Speaker:everything to move from.
Speaker:Well, I've got a job to move to God specifically, individually
Speaker:called me into this work.
Speaker:It's a very different experience of life.
Speaker:And so I always want to keep presenting that idea to you.
Speaker:That vocation is where you are.
Speaker:Vocation is who you are now.
Speaker:The second part of this.
Speaker:Uh, concept here is around.
Speaker:To the vocation that will cause you to love the most.
Speaker:Again, when I do live seminars for Catholic teachers.
Speaker:Staff professional development days.
Speaker:I then talk about this concept of love.
Speaker:There concentrate.
Speaker:The way I teach it on stage is simply to say that love is obviously
Speaker:highly, either sentimentalize in our culture or eroticized in our culture.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So we tend to have these two.
Speaker:These two parameters.
Speaker:When we talk about the word love.
Speaker:That it's either sentimental, it's an emotional feeling or the
Speaker:concept of love as it's eroticized.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, what I try to do is share with people a really cool story, which
Speaker:was when I was doing my masters in philosophical anthropology at the
Speaker:Pontifical Institute, we had a.
Speaker:A symposium.
Speaker:I see when you got a really fancy Catholic institutions, they don't have lectures.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:Lectures or for other people we had symposiums, well, not even symposiums.
Speaker:Cause that would be, that would not be the correct use of the plural.
Speaker:We had symposia.
Speaker:Symposium my friends.
Speaker:So they flew over this world, famous moral theologian called Monsignor Monsignor.
Speaker:Livio Molina.
Speaker:And they told us when he was coming, they said he is in, he is one of the
Speaker:world's top three moral theologians.
Speaker:And immediately the thought occurred to me.
Speaker:How do they rank them?
Speaker:How do they rank moral theologians is.
Speaker:I like a moral theologian Olympics.
Speaker:And Monsignor.
Speaker:And he's coming.
Speaker:He's finishing fast.
Speaker:He's taken third place.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:I digress.
Speaker:So Monsignor Molina.
Speaker:Gaming gave us this, uh, symposium because it was a singular one.
Speaker:Um, a symposium on love.
Speaker:So we did two weeks on love and you're thinking, how do you
Speaker:manage to do two weeks on love?
Speaker:Well, friends, it's a big topic.
Speaker:It's a huge.
Speaker:Huge thing in human history, right?
Speaker:I mean, Love is just something that obviously affects all of us.
Speaker:And there was a moment when he wrote something on the board, which had a huge
Speaker:impact on me for the rest of my life.
Speaker:And I've shared it with literally hundreds of thousands of people.
Speaker:He wrote a definition for the word love.
Speaker:He wrote on the ward to love.
Speaker:Is to will.
Speaker:The good of the other to love is to will or to desire.
Speaker:The good of the other.
Speaker:So two.
Speaker:Back to this quote from father Paul, where he says your vocation is that vocation,
Speaker:which will cause you to love the most.
Speaker:He tells us that this vocation we have is, is where God calls us.
Speaker:To love the most.
Speaker:So really quickly, I don't want to take too long here.
Speaker:The next thing that I teach Catholic teachers in live events is there
Speaker:are three levels to vocation.
Speaker:The first level is the vocation is son or daughter of God, every single one of us
Speaker:by birth and baptism has that vocation.
Speaker:We are all called into that vocation.
Speaker:To desire.
Speaker:And want what God wants.
Speaker:That's our first level of vocation.
Speaker:The second level of vocation is our state of life.
Speaker:Which will be married life, single life or consecrated religious life.
Speaker:So we're all going to eventually in life have one of those vocations.
Speaker:So if you're a priest you call to love to will the good of the other to serve
Speaker:and love people in that vocation.
Speaker:I'm married.
Speaker:I got a young family still.
Speaker:So I'm called into that vocation because God calls me into that vocation
Speaker:because he knows that's where I'm going to be called to love the most.
Speaker:So the third level of vocation is the work that you do in life.
Speaker:Do you see, do you see these three levels, you know, son or daughter
Speaker:of God, state of life, and third level is the work that we do.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:It's very counter-cultural isn't it?
Speaker:Because for most of our contemporaries, Work.
Speaker:Is considered in a kind of either structuralist or utilitarian modality,
Speaker:which are, or utilitarian modality would just be that the purpose of work is
Speaker:utility, right from the Latin root verby UT, which means to use that we, that
Speaker:we use work to get something else that we use work to get money in that money.
Speaker:Lets us get other things.
Speaker:So there's a very structuralist or utilitarian basis to work in this
Speaker:Christian understanding of our vocation.
Speaker:This work that we do as teachers.
Speaker:Is to love other people to will their good.
Speaker:So when you go into the classroom, God has placed you there.
Speaker:I called you into that classroom because God understood that that
Speaker:would be the place where you would learn to love the most to will.
Speaker:The good of the other, the most.
Speaker:And to wrap up.
Speaker:The last thing that I teach teachers is to love doesn't mean to like,
Speaker:So I don't see in the scriptures a mandate to like other people.
Speaker:God did not say Jesus did not say go forth and like people, because
Speaker:we're not going to wear humanists.
Speaker:Some people we're really not going to like, and that's okay.
Speaker:So you're not, we don't want to get beating ourselves up in that sense.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We accept that there are some people that we're not going to exactly gel with.
Speaker:So we don't have to like everybody, but we can definitely love everybody,
Speaker:which means we can desire the good we can, will the good of the other.
Speaker:So there's this cool moment in my live events where I say.
Speaker:I say to the teachers, I say, think of the colleague in this room
Speaker:right now that you like the least.
Speaker:And this, this awkward silence where everybody goes, and then
Speaker:I say to people, Hey, don't make eye contact whenever you do.
Speaker:Don't make eye contact right now.
Speaker:Excuse me.
Speaker:I snorted.
Speaker:Oh my gosh, I have to edit that out.
Speaker:No, I didn't edit that out.
Speaker:I apologize.
Speaker:It wasn't a snorter.
Speaker:It's more of a light sniff.
Speaker:I've actually been plastering dry wall sanding this morning.
Speaker:So I indulged me.
Speaker:So we are going to find students and colleagues that we don't like.
Speaker:But if God's called us into this vocation, he's going to give us
Speaker:the grace and the capacity to.
Speaker:Love them to will their good to treat them in a way to speak to them
Speaker:in such a way to see the best in them, regardless of how they behave.
Speaker:It doesn't mean we justify poor behavior or allow abuse.
Speaker:It just means that we learn to because ultimately isn't that exactly what Christ
Speaker:did like what's happening on the cross.
Speaker:You know, some Paul says he died for us while we were still sinners.
Speaker:It's not as if Jesus said I.
Speaker:Okay, fine.
Speaker:I'll go up on that cross, but there's going to be some conditions.
Speaker:I'm going to go up on that cross when you are all really likable, all of you.
Speaker:Throughout history.
Speaker:Every single one of you must be likable.
Speaker:I'm not going near that cross unless everyone's likable.
Speaker:No, that's not what happened.
Speaker:What did happen?
Speaker:He died for us while we were still sinners.
Speaker:He died for us while we were still selfish, lazy, indolent, abusive.
Speaker:Judgmental unkind selfish.
Speaker:He died for us there.
Speaker:He willed are good in the midst of our brokenness.
Speaker:And that's what we're called into.
Speaker:So I want you to hold in mind that student that is really rattling your cage.
Speaker:You've been called into that place to love them.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I hope that's helpful.
Speaker:I'll give you one last thing.
Speaker:Just on this.
Speaker:I was in church a few months ago at adoration.
Speaker:And I was thinking about the complexity of my life and the many demands and
Speaker:the busy-ness cause my kids are still young and they need so much in there.
Speaker:I used to think when they were really little, I thought, my gosh, didn't sleep.
Speaker:That'd be the hard part though.
Speaker:No, no new, new, new, new, new the hotpot I reckon is around.
Speaker:13 to 20, I reckon that's the real hot pot because they making all
Speaker:the decisions are in peer groups and all these different things.
Speaker:And they're finding their way in the world.
Speaker:And as I'm sitting in the back of the church, the church and
Speaker:adoration having a pity party, just me and my PD, pitying myself.
Speaker:Oh Lord.
Speaker:Only people knew how hard my life is.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:So much to do.
Speaker:And then I had this profound sense, which I don't get very often, which
Speaker:I hope it was the holy spirit.
Speaker:Saying to me, well, maybe your life.
Speaker:Is not about you.
Speaker:Maybe your life is not about you.
Speaker:Because we live in this moment in history where, you know, It's
Speaker:the iPhone generation, right?
Speaker:It's the I, everything everything's about, I want this, I want that.
Speaker:I like this.
Speaker:But what about lives?
Speaker:Aren't really about us so much.
Speaker:It doesn't mean we be doormats.
Speaker:It just means what if our life is not so much about us and what we want,
Speaker:what of our life can also be about.
Speaker:What other people need.
Speaker:And how to bless them because that's what Christ did.
Speaker:And we just got to do that.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:God bless you.
Speaker:If you'd like me to come and speak live at your school.
Speaker:Staff professional learning day conference event.
Speaker:I'm back in the us this year.
Speaker:So anywhere in the world.
Speaker:Uh, reach out.
Speaker:So there will be here on the podcast.
Speaker:There'll be some links.
Speaker:If you go to the podcast page, you should be able to find a link.
Speaker:Where you can book a time to talk with me about how we can do that.
Speaker:So go check it out.
Speaker:There's a bunch of other links there as well.
Speaker:But I'm friends.
Speaker:I hope that's a blessing to you.
Speaker:God bless you.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:This has been the Catholic teacher, pretty much daily podcast.
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