In today’s episode it’s time to explore a beautiful quote from Julien Green. I also explore how one single insight can give us a filter that we can apply to our relationships with our most difficult students.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Hope you're doing well.
Speaker:Got a really beautiful quote this morning that I hope is that I hope.
Speaker:That I hope is going to be useful for you.
Speaker:As a filter when you're dealing with.
Speaker:Difficult students.
Speaker:Now I know some of you listening have nothing but perfect students, but
Speaker:there are those of us that are times have been challenged, have been, uh,
Speaker:I have been pushed in our vocations by the blessings that the Lord sends us
Speaker:in terms of some challenging students.
Speaker:We've all been there.
Speaker:But I want to offer you this quote.
Speaker:As a filter that can help us all in the difficult challenges that we
Speaker:can face in Catholic education and also in our own homes and families.
Speaker:But this is a beautiful quote from Julian green.
Speaker:Uh, he was born in 1,990, 1998.
Speaker:It was an American novelist and it's a very beautiful quote as a Catholic guy.
Speaker:And he here's how it goes.
Speaker:He says this, you cannot imagine at all.
Speaker:How much you interest God.
Speaker:He is interested in you as if there was no one else on earth.
Speaker:One more time.
Speaker:You cannot imagine at all, how much you interest God.
Speaker:He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.
Speaker:So only you sit with that for a moment.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:This idea.
Speaker:The God is profoundly interested in us.
Speaker:And that he approaches each of us, his disposition towards each of us as he is,
Speaker:as if there was no one else in existence.
Speaker:First, I think that's hard for us to get our minds around.
Speaker:We all have a different experience of course, of spirituality
Speaker:and relationship with God.
Speaker:My mother, for example, had a wonderful relationship with her own father and.
Speaker:And for the younger stage, she, she just saw Jesus as her best friend.
Speaker:And so God, the father is incredibly loving.
Speaker:And there's some of us that have had a very different experience
Speaker:of life and we see God sometimes as you know, barely tolerating us.
Speaker:Don't we, uh, some of, you know what I'm talking about, you, the
Speaker:vision of God, he's up there.
Speaker:He's busy.
Speaker:Uh, you know, we, we don't want to interrupt him or.
Speaker:Or nagging with any of our prayers.
Speaker:But he tolerates us.
Speaker:He puts up with us.
Speaker:I mean, my father he's been dead quite a while now, but.
Speaker:His vision of heaven was that he might be allowed just to sneak in the back
Speaker:door and stand near the back somewhere.
Speaker:I remember him saying that to me, I've gone.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Um, you know, God bless him, but I'm like this idea that God might just tolerate us.
Speaker:And that he's watching and he's got a score book and we better get it right.
Speaker:So I know that listening to me today, you're all going to have a whole
Speaker:range of experiences across that.
Speaker:That whole range from, uh, a deep belief in God's love for you too.
Speaker:To you know, a different experience, but I that's why I love this quote.
Speaker:It helps us to realize that you cannot imagine how interested
Speaker:God is in you personally.
Speaker:It's as if the entire planet was empty and there was just, you.
Speaker:Uh, on the, uh, on the planets, interesting thing to get your head
Speaker:around, I'm going to link this to Catholic education in just a moment,
Speaker:but I'll give you another insight.
Speaker:I did a a, an eight day Ignation retreat.
Speaker:Uh, through a, a group of, uh, Catholic priests who specialize
Speaker:in retreats and it was in Florida.
Speaker:And our remembers about the third or fourth day where I had
Speaker:this huge revelation when in my own sort of journey of faith.
Speaker:We were sort of working through the incarnation.
Speaker:And suddenly struck me that.
Speaker:You know what the incarnation.
Speaker:W it's like Godwin to a lot of trouble, right?
Speaker:Like if you think about it, like he could have just, you know, Appeared on
Speaker:earth in a flash of blinding lightning and be like, I am God, everybody
Speaker:straightened up and behave properly.
Speaker:But he didn't do that.
Speaker:He went through this incredible process of entering into human experience and reality
Speaker:and the limitations and brokenness of it.
Speaker:There's a beautiful moment in the new series, the chosen.
Speaker:And of course, if you haven't seen the chosen, what have you been doing?
Speaker:Just jump on your phone and go to the app store.
Speaker:You get it through the app store and whatever device you've
Speaker:got, it's called the chosen.
Speaker:Caught really extraordinary.
Speaker:We just love it here as a family, but there's a scene.
Speaker:Um, I think you're only in the second series where Mary, the mother of God is,
Speaker:is basically talking about the nativity.
Speaker:And she has this beautifully expresses that.
Speaker:There was a moment when she was holding the Christ child and he was cold.
Speaker:And she said, all I knew was that he was cold and that he needed me.
Speaker:It was very moving.
Speaker:And I was like, you know, the incarnation was just such a huge theme for God to do.
Speaker:And here's the revelation I got on this retreat through Florida was.
Speaker:If God didn't really like us that much.
Speaker:Why go to all the trouble?
Speaker:Like really, why go to all the trouble?
Speaker:And you look at the whole arc of scripture from the old Testament,
Speaker:the prophets in our hundreds and hundreds of years of trying to get
Speaker:people's attention and then taking that radical step of breaking into reality.
Speaker:So all of this for me.
Speaker:And this quote today that that God is interested in us is just
Speaker:important for us to be reminded of.
Speaker:That, um, he doesn't tolerate us.
Speaker:He doesn't put up with us.
Speaker:He is mind blowingly interested in us.
Speaker:It's extraordinary.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:Now what's it got to do with Catholic teachers?
Speaker:Well, it's this.
Speaker:If you can use this idea as a filter for your most difficult
Speaker:students, it could be really helpful.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:So I think of that student as most difficult.
Speaker:If you get this insight, that God feels that way about that student.
Speaker:That can be very helpful.
Speaker:I know it's hard.
Speaker:It's not easy thing to say or do, but.
Speaker:The realization that God is so utterly interested in that
Speaker:most difficult of students.
Speaker:You know, my, one of my daughter's at her school.
Speaker:Um, there's some there's, there's been some pretty challenging students
Speaker:there and, uh, it's fascinating too.
Speaker:For me to talk with her and say to you, pray for me, praying for these kids.
Speaker:Like, and that's a bit of a revelation for her.
Speaker:She's like, well, you know, they're difficult.
Speaker:I said, I get it.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:And the reason I'm saying that is because if you pray for students
Speaker:for difficult students, I keep telling people is it's very hard.
Speaker:To be long-term angry or resentful or bitter towards somebody
Speaker:you praying for every day.
Speaker:It's not impossible.
Speaker:You can do it, but it's not easy.
Speaker:You find that if you begin to pray for people and you ask God for his
Speaker:heart, for the difficult students,
Speaker:Then it's difficult to sustain that frustration and resentment doesn't mean
Speaker:we don't deal with difficult behaviors.
Speaker:Doesn't mean we don't have good strategies for behavior
Speaker:management, classroom management.
Speaker:But this is a spiritual task.
Speaker:You've got to keep remembering that a Catholic school is
Speaker:not like a public school.
Speaker:It's not like a secular school.
Speaker:No judgment on government or secular public schools at all.
Speaker:And that's not my point.
Speaker:My point is that a Catholic school is different.
Speaker:It's a place where we genuinely pray for our students.
Speaker:Well, we asked God to give us his heart for them.
Speaker:Who we asked Mary to give, uh, for her, for her heart, for them, give it to us,
Speaker:you know, help us to have that heart.
Speaker:So you get the 0.1 more time.
Speaker:Here's this quote from Julian green.
Speaker:You cannot imagine at all, how much you interest God.
Speaker:He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.
Speaker:So I'm going to try and get through my day thinking about that, reflecting upon it.
Speaker:I think if you get it.
Speaker:This pace brings peace to know that no matter what you're going to face
Speaker:today, no matter what challenges and problems are in our lives, because
Speaker:we all have no shortage of problems and challenges and difficulties.
Speaker:But the realization that he's with us, he's interested in us.
Speaker:He knows every burden that you carry.
Speaker:And he's with you.
Speaker:So let's take that heart into our own spirituality and it's taken into
Speaker:praying for our most difficult students.
Speaker:I hope that's a blessing to your friends, right?
Speaker:So housekeeping, please make sure you've subscribed.
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Speaker:Send this podcast out to a few friends and say, Hey subscribe.
Speaker:This is a good podcast for Catholic teachers.
Speaker:And of course you can find me on Patrion.
Speaker:I would love your support on Patrion.
Speaker:If you just got to patrion.com and just type in Jonathan Doyle, that'd be huge.
Speaker:Blessing allows me to keep going and doing this.
Speaker:That's it for today, everybody.
Speaker:Let's get out there.
Speaker:It's realize that god is deeply interested in us and take that heart to his students
Speaker:my name's jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and
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