Whatever You Are Be A Good One

Important wisdom from St. Thomas More and Abraham Lincoln

In today’s episode I explore a great insight from St. Thomas More and also some reinforcement from Abraham Lincoln. The calling of every Catholic teacher is not to simply ‘do a job’ but to partner with grace to become the very best teacher that God always wanted them to become. We explore the power and beauty of the vocation that every Catholic teacher is called to realise. No one is exempt from God’s great plan for their life.

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!

The High Calling Of Every Catholic Teacher

Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan door with you. Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast. Thanks for tuning in. It’s been really exciting to see the number of listeners growing so consistently. So whether you’re a new listener, a regular listener, thanks for making a little bit of time in your extremely busy day or evening, wherever you are in the world to just get a little bit of encouragement.

It’s so important. Isn’t it encouragement? I said in a live virtual keynote last week that. Catholic teaches are professional givers. It keeps on a teachers. When you introduce yourself, don’t just say, you know, often teachers say I’m just a teacher. Oh, I’m just a Catholic teacher. I just teach at a school.

I said to them, start telling people that you’re not a teacher. What you are is a professional giver. You give, you give pastoral care, you give spiritual encouragement, you give spiritual instruction, you give all sorts of different things. And remember that if you are a professional giver, One of the most crucial things is to become a professional receiver.

How do you do that? Well, very much through the sacraments, through prayer, through a dependence on Christ. That’s what I was talking about in the virtual keynote last week, becoming truly dependent on the person of Jesus. Let’s remember the Catholic education. Isn’t a system. It’s not an idea. It’s not a.

Program, it’s a relationship with a person and that relationship with Jesus flowing through you, uh, growing in the other staff in the school creates a certain kind of community. So it’s all good to have good programs. It’s good to have great pedagogy. It’s good to have good management and good structure so that there’s harmony and predictability in the environment, but let’s never forget that.

Ultimately, what we are doing is building a relationship with Jesus Christ in our own lives. That then permeates the culture of the school and then evangelize these young people. That is why we are in the game. So last week I did this, uh, virtual keynote. So if you were there, it was the archdiocese of San Francisco, almost a thousand teachers dialed in for that, a really wonderful experience, a just a real privilege to do that and to put that together.

So, uh, if you’re anywhere else in the world and, uh, you’d be interested in a virtual keynote with me, then reach out in through the website, one Catholic teacher.com and let me know it was a really awesome experience, just so beautiful to be able to encourage people. I just wanted to share in this short episode, one of the key points that I made in the virtual keynote.

It’s something, some of you may have heard me share before. It’s that beautiful line from the wonderful movie, a man for all seasons where Saint Thomas Moore is talking to the young man, Richard Rich, who eventually betrays him. And many of you would have seen that film and you would know who I’m talking about, but there’s that beautiful scene at the start of the, where Richard Rich is a teacher as a young teacher.

In the court of Henry the eighth, but what he wants to do is get into the power games of Henry the eighth court. So he doesn’t want to just be a tutor in Henry, the eighth court. He wants to be applier. He wants to get promoted. He wants to get seen. And there’s that beautiful moment where son Thomas, he says to him, rich, you’re a teacher.

Why not be a great one? And then of course Richard riches, but who would know, but who would know? And some Thomas Moore prayerfully reflection says, well, reach your students would know your parents, your friends, God, not about audience that rich, not a bad audience. It’s a beautiful line when he says that not a bad audience.

So he’s saying to Richard Rich, listen, you are a teacher. Like that’s who you are rich. And as he, Thomas Moore was his mentor. So he knew him, well, he said, this is your DNA, this is your vocation. And he said, become a great one. Yeah. Always struck me. It really impacted me many years ago when I first saw that.

And I think that’s it’s to the heart of this Catholic education, vocation, this isn’t job, this isn’t something you chose. This is something you were called into. And as Thomas Moore said, if you’re going to do it. Then why not be a great one? Have you ever really thought about that? Have you ever asked yourself that question?

Could I be a great Catholic teacher? Could I be an extraordinary Catholic teacher? Could I be somebody that has the most beautiful, powerful, memorable role in the lives of young people and their families? So remember we don’t accomplish this ourselves. We accomplish this through grace and through cooperating with the grace that is so available to us.

So that’s my question for in today’s episode, if you’re going to do this, some of you heard me, you’ve seen me live. You’ve heard me say it. If you’re going to do this, then want to be a great one, huh? Want to be a great one known as don’t put that thought in your mind, right? Let’s wrap up. This is a cool quote.

I like this. I want to share something with you. It’s from a book called the soul of the apostolate by John Baptist, shut heart and listen to this great quote. He says those who pray. This is from the eminent statesmen, Donoso Cortez after his conversion. So this was a guy who was involved in, you know, state diplomacy and conflict and Wars.

And he says those who pray, do more for the world than those who fight. And if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers. You turn on your TV lately. How does it look like things like going out, their friends, those who pray, do more for the world and those who fight.

And if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers. I remember, years ago, reading Thomas Merton’s biography. The seven story mountain, and this is beautiful reflection. He had where he talked about monastic life and the monasteries. And he sort of had this library.

I said, you know, fire would have rained down from heaven, you know, centuries before. If it wasn’t for the prayers of these places, he sort of saw them as kind of spiritual power stations, like nuclear, spiritual power stations, pouring grace into the world, through prayer, praying for the world. So. All I want to do is just take this quote, this beautiful quote and you know, things are going from bad to worse.

It’s because there’s more battles than prayers. Let’s not forget the centrality of prayer of intercession, of praying for people, for circumstances, for situ for breakthrough. Um, it’s early here in the studio as many regular listeners know, I pray the divine office pretty much every day, without exception over the last sort of 10 or so years, at least.

And it’s just a beautiful chance each day to pray for people. Just to, to intercede. So I just wanna encourage you. Are you praying for your students as you drive into work or maybe you’re doing virtual stuff at the moment and all my friends in San Francisco are doing virtual education still. And, uh, you know, here in Australia with the state of Victoria is still in a terrible state where it’s locked down and there’s so many teachers, they have you’re listening down there.

Pray start your virtual sessions with prayer. Lead your students through online virtual prayer, be a prayer warrior Bria icon for them be a window into the vine, as you pray for them, for their families, for the world, for our leaders. So friends, you want less battles, let’s have more prayers. Okay. So let’s all commit to that.

So God bless you. That’s all I wanted to do. Want to encourage you. Oh, yeah. And on that Thomas Mueller thing, as I was in the studio today, I’ve got this cool little book that I came across, a nice quote from Abraham Lincoln. He was sort of echoing said, Thomas Moore. He said, what is you are be a good one.

Whatever you are be a good one, a precedent or a, you know, a bus driver. Or a Catholic teacher or a neurosurgeon. If we’re going to do these things with our lives, let’s do them really well to the glory of God. You know, I love that, you know, I spent a year, a long time ago at a Jesuit boarding school in England is 500 year old school.

And, uh, it was just amazing, you know, they’re the AMD G I think the, uh, at my arm dare Gloria. I mean, for the greater glory of God, they drill this into the kid’s IMDG, you know, this beautiful Latin phrase for the greater glory of God. Page of writing for the greater glory of God, this statue for the greater glory of God, this meeting for the greater glory of God.

So friends pressing let’s live these vocations, passionately and powerfully to the glory of God. And it’s a short ride. We’re all going home to heaven. And this life we’re gonna look back and say, wow, it was over much quicker than we thought. And what’s gonna matter is what we contributed and did for the person of Christ, how we encountered him in our students in the poor, in each other said, pray, trust, do not worry.

And become the best Catholic teacher. You can. God bless your friends. Everything’s on the website. One Catholic teacher.com. My new books there. My, my book for Catholic teachers is there. My new book for students is there. The online training platforms are there. So one Catholic teacher.com. Please make sure you’ve subscribed to the podcast.

And as always, please share this with a few friends. God bless your friends. My name is Jonathan Doyle. This has been the Catholic teacher daily podcast. And I’ll have another message for you tomorrow.