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What God Thinks About Catholic Teachers
Episode 299th June 2021 • The Catholic Teacher Podcast • Jonathan Doyle
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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.

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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Once again, welcome back to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.

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Hope you're doing well.

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Got a really beautiful quote this morning that I hope is that I hope.

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That I hope is going to be useful for you.

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As a filter when you're dealing with.

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Difficult students.

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Now I know some of you listening have nothing but perfect students, but

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there are those of us that are times have been challenged, have been, uh,

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I have been pushed in our vocations by the blessings that the Lord sends us

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in terms of some challenging students.

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We've all been there.

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But I want to offer you this quote.

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As a filter that can help us all in the difficult challenges that we

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can face in Catholic education and also in our own homes and families.

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But this is a beautiful quote from Julian green.

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Uh, he was born in 1,990, 1998.

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It was an American novelist and it's a very beautiful quote as a Catholic guy.

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And he here's how it goes.

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He says this, you cannot imagine at all.

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How much you interest God.

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He is interested in you as if there was no one else on earth.

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One more time.

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You cannot imagine at all, how much you interest God.

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He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.

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So only you sit with that for a moment.

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Um,

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This idea.

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The God is profoundly interested in us.

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And that he approaches each of us, his disposition towards each of us as he is,

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as if there was no one else in existence.

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First, I think that's hard for us to get our minds around.

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We all have a different experience of course, of spirituality

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and relationship with God.

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My mother, for example, had a wonderful relationship with her own father and.

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And for the younger stage, she, she just saw Jesus as her best friend.

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And so God, the father is incredibly loving.

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And there's some of us that have had a very different experience

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of life and we see God sometimes as you know, barely tolerating us.

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Don't we, uh, some of, you know what I'm talking about, you, the

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vision of God, he's up there.

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He's busy.

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Uh, you know, we, we don't want to interrupt him or.

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Or nagging with any of our prayers.

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But he tolerates us.

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He puts up with us.

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I mean, my father he's been dead quite a while now, but.

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His vision of heaven was that he might be allowed just to sneak in the back

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door and stand near the back somewhere.

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I remember him saying that to me, I've gone.

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Wow.

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Um, you know, God bless him, but I'm like this idea that God might just tolerate us.

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And that he's watching and he's got a score book and we better get it right.

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So I know that listening to me today, you're all going to have a whole

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range of experiences across that.

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That whole range from, uh, a deep belief in God's love for you too.

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To you know, a different experience, but I that's why I love this quote.

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It helps us to realize that you cannot imagine how interested

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God is in you personally.

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It's as if the entire planet was empty and there was just, you.

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Uh, on the, uh, on the planets, interesting thing to get your head

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around, I'm going to link this to Catholic education in just a moment,

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but I'll give you another insight.

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I did a a, an eight day Ignation retreat.

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Uh, through a, a group of, uh, Catholic priests who specialize

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in retreats and it was in Florida.

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And our remembers about the third or fourth day where I had

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this huge revelation when in my own sort of journey of faith.

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We were sort of working through the incarnation.

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And suddenly struck me that.

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You know what the incarnation.

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W it's like Godwin to a lot of trouble, right?

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Like if you think about it, like he could have just, you know, Appeared on

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earth in a flash of blinding lightning and be like, I am God, everybody

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straightened up and behave properly.

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But he didn't do that.

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He went through this incredible process of entering into human experience and reality

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and the limitations and brokenness of it.

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There's a beautiful moment in the new series, the chosen.

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And of course, if you haven't seen the chosen, what have you been doing?

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Just jump on your phone and go to the app store.

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You get it through the app store and whatever device you've

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got, it's called the chosen.

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Caught really extraordinary.

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We just love it here as a family, but there's a scene.

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Um, I think you're only in the second series where Mary, the mother of God is,

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is basically talking about the nativity.

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And she has this beautifully expresses that.

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There was a moment when she was holding the Christ child and he was cold.

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And she said, all I knew was that he was cold and that he needed me.

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It was very moving.

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And I was like, you know, the incarnation was just such a huge theme for God to do.

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And here's the revelation I got on this retreat through Florida was.

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If God didn't really like us that much.

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Why go to all the trouble?

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Like really, why go to all the trouble?

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And you look at the whole arc of scripture from the old Testament,

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the prophets in our hundreds and hundreds of years of trying to get

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people's attention and then taking that radical step of breaking into reality.

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So all of this for me.

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And this quote today that that God is interested in us is just

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important for us to be reminded of.

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That, um, he doesn't tolerate us.

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He doesn't put up with us.

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He is mind blowingly interested in us.

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It's extraordinary.

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Isn't it?

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Now what's it got to do with Catholic teachers?

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Well, it's this.

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If you can use this idea as a filter for your most difficult

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students, it could be really helpful.

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You know what I mean?

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So I think of that student as most difficult.

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If you get this insight, that God feels that way about that student.

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That can be very helpful.

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I know it's hard.

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It's not easy thing to say or do, but.

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The realization that God is so utterly interested in that

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most difficult of students.

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You know, my, one of my daughter's at her school.

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Um, there's some there's, there's been some pretty challenging students

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there and, uh, it's fascinating too.

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For me to talk with her and say to you, pray for me, praying for these kids.

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Like, and that's a bit of a revelation for her.

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She's like, well, you know, they're difficult.

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I said, I get it.

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But.

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And the reason I'm saying that is because if you pray for students

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for difficult students, I keep telling people is it's very hard.

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To be long-term angry or resentful or bitter towards somebody

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you praying for every day.

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It's not impossible.

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You can do it, but it's not easy.

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You find that if you begin to pray for people and you ask God for his

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heart, for the difficult students,

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Then it's difficult to sustain that frustration and resentment doesn't mean

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we don't deal with difficult behaviors.

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Doesn't mean we don't have good strategies for behavior

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management, classroom management.

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But this is a spiritual task.

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You've got to keep remembering that a Catholic school is

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not like a public school.

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It's not like a secular school.

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No judgment on government or secular public schools at all.

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And that's not my point.

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My point is that a Catholic school is different.

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It's a place where we genuinely pray for our students.

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Well, we asked God to give us his heart for them.

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Who we asked Mary to give, uh, for her, for her heart, for them, give it to us,

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you know, help us to have that heart.

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So you get the 0.1 more time.

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Here's this quote from Julian green.

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You cannot imagine at all, how much you interest God.

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He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.

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So I'm going to try and get through my day thinking about that, reflecting upon it.

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I think if you get it.

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This pace brings peace to know that no matter what you're going to face

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today, no matter what challenges and problems are in our lives, because

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we all have no shortage of problems and challenges and difficulties.

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But the realization that he's with us, he's interested in us.

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He knows every burden that you carry.

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And he's with you.

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So let's take that heart into our own spirituality and it's taken into

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praying for our most difficult students.

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I hope that's a blessing to your friends, right?

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So housekeeping, please make sure you've subscribed.

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Hit that big subscribe button.

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Send this podcast out to a few friends and say, Hey subscribe.

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This is a good podcast for Catholic teachers.

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And of course you can find me on Patrion.

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I would love your support on Patrion.

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If you just got to patrion.com and just type in Jonathan Doyle, that'd be huge.

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Blessing allows me to keep going and doing this.

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That's it for today, everybody.

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Let's get out there.

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It's realize that god is deeply interested in us and take that heart to his students

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my name's jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and

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