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.

Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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

Hope you're doing well.

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

That I hope is going to be useful for you.

As a filter when you're dealing with.

Difficult students.

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

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

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

in terms of some challenging students.

We've all been there.

But I want to offer you this quote.

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

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

But this is a beautiful quote from Julian green.

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

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

And he here's how it goes.

He says this, you cannot imagine at all.

How much you interest God.

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

One more time.

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

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

So only you sit with that for a moment.

Um,

This idea.

The God is profoundly interested in us.

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

as if there was no one else in existence.

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

We all have a different experience of course, of spirituality

and relationship with God.

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

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

And so God, the father is incredibly loving.

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

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

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

vision of God, he's up there.

He's busy.

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

Or nagging with any of our prayers.

But he tolerates us.

He puts up with us.

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

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

door and stand near the back somewhere.

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

Wow.

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

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

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

range of experiences across that.

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

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

It helps us to realize that you cannot imagine how interested

God is in you personally.

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

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

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

but I'll give you another insight.

I did a a, an eight day Ignation retreat.

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

in retreats and it was in Florida.

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

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

We were sort of working through the incarnation.

And suddenly struck me that.

You know what the incarnation.

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

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

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

straightened up and behave properly.

But he didn't do that.

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

and the limitations and brokenness of it.

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

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

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

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

got, it's called the chosen.

Caught really extraordinary.

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

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

is basically talking about the nativity.

And she has this beautifully expresses that.

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

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

It was very moving.

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

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

If God didn't really like us that much.

Why go to all the trouble?

Like really, why go to all the trouble?

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

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

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

So all of this for me.

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

important for us to be reminded of.

That, um, he doesn't tolerate us.

He doesn't put up with us.

He is mind blowingly interested in us.

It's extraordinary.

Isn't it?

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

Well, it's this.

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

students, it could be really helpful.

You know what I mean?

So I think of that student as most difficult.

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

That can be very helpful.

I know it's hard.

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

The realization that God is so utterly interested in that

most difficult of students.

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

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

there and, uh, it's fascinating too.

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

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

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

I said, I get it.

But.

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

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

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

you praying for every day.

It's not impossible.

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

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

heart, for the difficult students,

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

we don't deal with difficult behaviors.

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

management, classroom management.

But this is a spiritual task.

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

not like a public school.

It's not like a secular school.

No judgment on government or secular public schools at all.

And that's not my point.

My point is that a Catholic school is different.

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

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

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

you know, help us to have that heart.

So you get the 0.1 more time.

Here's this quote from Julian green.

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

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

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

I think if you get it.

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

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

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

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

He knows every burden that you carry.

And he's with you.

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

praying for our most difficult students.

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

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That's it for today, everybody.

Let's get out there.

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

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