It's not as exciting as The Rise of Skywalker but The Return of Jonathan may have to do for now. No, I did not fall off the edge of the world. I'm back and hoping to bring you some daily encouragement in your journey as a Catholic teacher. In this episode I'm going to be talking about Roger Scruton's thoughts on beauty, Padre Pio's thoughts on the slow progress of the spiritual life and how the Gospel helps our students get free from the risks of social media.

Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

Hasn't it been a while.

Huh?

Welcome back to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.

If you're listening to this, God bless you because I'm sure

you're a regular listener.

And you've been wondering which edge of the planet.

Did I fall off?

It's like one of those old maps, you know, when they thought that the, uh,

the earth was flattened with dragons and waterfalls, if you went off the edge,

Where did Jonathan go?

It's a it's like that.

Where's Wally book.

Where's Jonathan.

So friends, I sent out an email yesterday to everybody

and explained a little bit of.

What's been happening.

Uh, long story short, the government reaction.

To COVID.

Had a huge impact on, I guess, the career that I've been involved

with for the last two decades.

Plus.

The travel obviously disappeared.

It was a great pity because I was looking forward to being back in the

U S a lot with all of the wonderful teachers from the United States.

I was going to keynote the NCA convention in Baltimore before just as COVID hit.

And then that's shut down all the travel and then obviously.

Uh, the business that we had and the work that we were doing

was very significantly impacted.

By some of the decisions of our government.

Which led me to, I guess, a kind of career change and I've been

doing some different things.

Just, uh, to keep things moving along, but the whole time I've just had.

An awareness of just how crucial the work of Catholic teachers is.

And I said in yesterday's email that you can tell it's

a quote from Christine Caine.

You know, she wants.

You can tell if something's from God, because you try to leave it

alone, but it won't leave you alone.

And I've been feeling, I guess.

More and more recently as I've prayed through it over the last few weeks.

That there are so many amazing Catholic teachers out there.

Every day.

Trying to live out their faith, to live out their vocation, to serve young people.

And I just wanted to keep offering something that I hope

will be a blessing to you.

And, uh, so that will be the daily email.

I'm going to be putting out the podcast as often as possible,

hopefully on a daily basis.

And I also want to put some stuff on YouTube.

Uh, I sort of, I don't have any social media at the moment.

I've.

Over the last few years been deleting those accounts on, I'm not

convinced that social media is in general as a force for social good.

So I've progressively moved out of that space, but.

I use YouTube a lot myself, uh, learning and, uh, a whole

bunch of different things.

So I'll try and get some content there.

Now, all I want to do just to finish up here is take you through yesterday's

quote, if you didn't see it and.

Uh, talk a little bit about today's.

We're in lent at the moment.

And I thought I'd just speak really briefly about today's gospel, which

I think has something to offer us.

As Catholic educators.

So yesterday's quote was, um, a beautiful quote from Roger Scruton.

Some of you might be familiar with Roger Scruton, uh, went home

to Jesus recently passed away.

Uh, he's often seen as the greatest.

Uh, conservative philosopher of the last probably a hundred years.

Uh, I really dignified and brilliant philosopher and man.

And, uh, his quote was simply this.

He said something of the child's pure delight in creation.

Survives in every true work of art.

One more time, something of the child's pure delight in creation

survives in every true work.

Of art.

So why did I choose that?

Because if you know anything about Roger Scruton, you know, that he

wrote voluminously on beauty and he had an obsession with trying to.

Inculcate beauty back into.

Uh, world and he wrote a great deal about art.

And I guess he was a defender of the idea that beauty was really not

so much in the eye of the beholder.

He would argue that beauty was an objective thing.

And that it had appeared in the great works of art and

music throughout the centuries.

And I shared this quote because it's important to remember that beauty.

Needs to be part of our Catholic school environment.

Now not all of us are going to have the budgets to create the

Sistine chapel or recreate the Sistine chapel in our classrooms.

But I just want to encourage you that any small aspects of beauty that

you can bring into your teaching.

Uh, really important to have a spiritual effect, a spiritual impact.

So it might mean that, you know, you have music playing really quietly.

Some, some, you know, always like Beethoven seventh, you know, just

quietly playing that in the background.

Or whether it's flowers or posters or artwork.

Don't.

Underestimate the importance of beauty in the Catholic school.

You know, you might've heard that, uh, the term, the concrete

jungle, it actually was a book.

I think it came out in the sixties.

The concrete jungle was a thesis that when people were surrounded

by ugliness, by concrete and by, uh, you know, mess and dirt.

Then, you know, it tended to affect social behaviors and

crime and all sorts of things.

Sort of video yesterday of, uh, you know, McDonald's has just shut down

its flagship restaurants in Seattle.

And no offense to anybody living in Seattle, but some of the issues there

with crime and homelessness in the inner city area, just being kind of

really falling apart in many ways.

Once that process takes hold once that sense of ugliness or decay.

Begins to happen.

It's very hard to bring it back.

So we need to be thinking about our Catholic schools, that if we keep our

finger on the pulse, on that sort of aesthetic pulse, so that our schools.

In whatever way we can do.

Our places of beauty, that's gonna have an effect on, uh, on our students and on us.

So I guess my summary on this would just be to say that

beauty isn't a neutral thing.

It's not a subjective thing.

It's an objective force.

You know, we talk in, in Catholic theology about something called

the transcendentals, which I've spoken about pretty regularly

truth, beauty and goodness.

And this goes back to Aristotle who argued that, uh, you know, the, the.

The truth, beauty and goodness.

We're inherent to the nature of God.

So wherever you saw truth, wherever you encountered beauty,

wherever you experienced.

Goodness, you're experiencing the divine.

So let's hold on to that.

All right.

Today's quote, which will go out in the next couple of hours.

It's 4:37 AM here in the studio.

Uh, it had a pretty early start today.

Hey, this is a beautiful quote from a Padre PO or St.

PO.

As many of you would know him, a very famous priest who carried the stigmata.

He says, be content to progress in slow steps until you have legs to run.

And wings with which to fly.

One more time.

Beacon tent.

To progress in slow steps.

Until you have legs to run.

And wings with which to fly.

I wanted to bring this quote to you because the first part of this be

content to progress in slow steps.

Can I remind all of us today that the Catholic spiritual life is.

It's the MAs road.

Isn't it.

It's the one foot in front of the other.

It's these little steps as we encounter the presence of Jesus through sacrament,

through prayer, through ritual.

So.

I want to encourage you today to keep taking slow steps.

Two.

Keep continuing to grow your spiritual life, your life of prayer.

Little bit of time with the gospels each day.

You know, I, I have just made prayer daily prayer, the bedrock of my life.

I really have by the grace of God, not because I'm special, but

because I've just realized over.

Years that.

Daily prayer.

Daily time with Jesus with Mary.

Is so crucial.

Praying for my kids praying for you guys.

So it's slow steps.

You know, you'd have to ask Karen whether or not.

Uh, it's working, but I'd like to think that very slowly over the

years, Through cooperating with grace.

That we do change and we do grow.

So let's not be hard on ourselves if we're not all by locating or experiencing

angelic visions every single day.

But it's walking out these slow steps in.

Each classroom, each lesson that you're teaching each interaction

with students and colleagues.

Slow steps.

It's these slow steps that build our spirituality that build.

Christ's ability to work through us.

And then one day when you put all those slow little steps together, those.

Those little prayers, all those little moments of silence

and stillness and scripture.

It allows God to shape you into who he really always wanted

you to be a new, you could be.

And that's what we need.

We need saints in our Catholic schools.

Do you know that, you know, that's why I do this because I genuinely

believe that's what's actually happening in Catholic education.

Or that's why it's established.

Because Jesus believes in us, he believes that we can become

saints, that we can become holy.

And we do it in these tiny daily steps.

All right.

The last thing, because this is much longer than normal.

So always most days these podcasts are three or four minutes, but a little

bit longer today because it's been a while today's gospel we're in week.

Uh, Wednesday I'm in Wednesday of week, two of lent.

Uh, it's a reading from the gospel of Matthew chapter 20 verse 17 to 28.

And it's that story.

I won't read it to you, but it's that story?

Where, you know, the, the mother of James and John comes before

Jesus and says, Hey, do me a favor.

And Jesus is like, what do you want me to do?

And she says, well, I'm want you to make my son's kind of your.

Your second in commands.

I want you to give them seats on your left and right when you come into

your kingdom, of course, she assumed that his kingdom was going to be.

I massive military restoration of, uh, you know, Hebrew nationalism.

And these were her, you know, her precious boys were going to be

like numbered number two and three.

And Jesus, of course, you know, it goes on to, to make the point because.

As you know, As often happens in any small community.

The other disciples find out that this a request was made and the

not exactly excited about it.

And Jesus.

This is why the gospel is so incredible.

Why it's so culturally transformative.

Because he tells them that.

They can't live this way.

He makes the point that the cultures that surround them.

The Gentile cultures, you know, Jesus says that these are the cultures where

the great men make their presence felt.

That, uh, that those in leadership exercise power

and they make people feel it.

And Jesus says, this is not to be like, you're not to be this way.

He said the greatest among you will be the one who serves.

So friends, we could talk about this for hours, but very simply.

The gospel is the gospel of descent.

It's a gospel where counter culturally, that the more

that we seek the lowest place.

The more that Christ elevates us and lifts us up.

Now the reason I'm sharing this with you guys today is simply because.

I young people immersed in this social media world are taught

that life is really about profile.

It's about being recognized.

It's about being an influencer.

It's about being.

Powerful significant having authority having, you know,

recognition by all those around them.

And as you probably know, better than most particularly for our young women.

This social media culture often leaves them.

Well, you know, feeling anything but empowered.

I think it's in general, a pretty destructive force.

So as a Catholic educator, you have a chance.

To teach this gospel.

To begin to teach this gospel to them.

This gospel of.

That it's okay to seek the lower place.

It's okay to seek humility and simplicity and.

And lowliness, these are counter cultural forces.

That's why Catholic teachers.

I like these.

I think you're all like secret agent, you know, special forces operators,

because you're under the radar.

Telling a very different story to a culture that's lost its way.

So friends, that's it for me today.

There's a lot in there, but, uh, let's take these slow

steps is Padre PIO tells us.

Let's keep looking for beauty and bringing beauty into our schools as

Roger Scruton tells us, and let's keep seeking the lowest place as Jesus

tells us, because if we do that, then he's going to raise us up and put

us exactly where he wants us to be.

So from my heart to yours,

Thank you for all you're doing in the hidden daily work of Catholic education.

You can find out everything about us.

i@onecatholicteacherdotcomoneonecatholicteacher.com.

Uh, and, uh, if you want to email me, just email me direct

jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com.

Please make sure you've subscribed wherever you're hearing this.

And of course I'd love if you could share this.

With other Catholic teachers.

All right, friends.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow.

I'm back in the game by the grace of God.

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