In today's episode I want to share an important insight from St. Augustine that we do out students a disservice if we dont tell them that life can be hard and that they need to firmly established in Christ to navigate the challenges that lie ahead.

Telling our students that 'being happy' is the goal of life will not do help them to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead. We have a much bigger story to tell.

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Well, hello there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you.

Welcome to the Catholic Teacher Daily Podcast.

Thank you for taking a moment to tune in.

I hope that what we share together today will be a blessing

to you in your incredible vocation as a Catholic educator.

As always, thank you for what you are doing.

I know that you get exhausted by the endless number of students and parents

and colleagues and uh, leaders in your.

School system that, uh, every single day just overwhelm you with gratitude.

And thanks for all the efforts that you make.

I know that it gets tiresome to be so deeply appreciated at all

times, but, uh, hang in there.

You can, you can do it.

But, uh, in all seriousness, just always be reminded that

this is a beautiful vocation.

What you're doing is changing lives and making a significant difference

in the world, even if you don't always sense it in the moment today.

I wanna share with you some, uh, really interesting insight

from, uh, Saint Augustine.

And as I was preparing in the studio, I thought it's just

worth reminding ourselves what an incredible gift the Saints are.

There are so many things I love about my Catholic faith, but the

incredible blessing of the saints.

These men and women throughout history who live heroic virtue, who respond to

the gift of God in dramatic and heroic ways and provide for us exemplars.

Of what is possible, and as I said a couple of days ago, please be

disabused of the notion that saints are necessarily preordained in heaven, that

God creates them in a special saint factory, rolls them off a conveyor

belt and sends them into the world.

You know, saints are people exactly like you.

Who encountered the love of God and responded to it in particular ways.

And as often saying Catholic trivia there, the church does not make saints.

I'm sure you know that, right?

The church doesn't, you know, it's not as if it's just a normal person.

And then the saint, uh, the church goes, oh, well you know what?

They're pretty cool.

We're gonna make them a saint.

So in, in the church's own self understanding.

The church doesn't make saints.

She beautiful word here, recognizes them.

Isn't that cool?

The church doesn't make saints.

It recognizes them.

It's like the saint goes, oh, look over there.

There's a saint living amongst us.

We didn't know.

Um, tomorrow morning, uh, it's, it's Friday here in the studio, but Saturday

where there's gonna be a mass on the top of a mountain in, in our town

here to, uh, to celebrate the, uh.

The recent canonization of Carlo ADIs and Pierre Giorgio FRAs.

And you know, this particularly these young saints are

having such a huge impact.

I've got teenage kids and they're really interested in this story.

And you know, here are these two young men, you know, living out their, their

lay vocations and just living that response to God in such a profound

way that the church recognizes them.

So who knows, maybe you are next, right?

Maybe you are next.

Uh, I'm not sure if you just laughed when I said that and you just go,

Jonathan, I know I told you this story, but I love the sacrament confession.

And, uh, and it's, it's, for me, it's a very special sacrament.

Always has been.

And I try to get there very, very regularly.

And I went to confession a few weeks ago, and without going into gory

detail, I was, you know, one of the things that I was talking about, uh,

to the priest was sort of impatience.

And I know it's hard to believe.

I know what you think.

You think, Jonathan, you impatient.

Oh, my friends.

You have no idea.

Yeah, my, you know, it's, it's a gi it's a strength at times.

It's like, I want to get things done, I want things to happen, but it's

also, of course, a weakness and, uh, and, and an occasion of sin.

So, so I, I, I have confession and I'm driving away from the cathedral.

And again, without going into gory detail, let's just say that I wasn't

particularly overwhelmed with excitement at some people's driving on the way home.

And my son's there and he's like.

Daddy, you been impatient.

I'm like, maybe why are you asking?

It's like, didn't you just go to confession?

So why am I telling you that?

Because Saint Abro said that a saint is somebody who falls

99 times, but rises a hundred.

So don't rule yourself out because you don't know where your life may go.

Now, what is the purpose of this podcast?

I got a message here.

I love working through the daily readings in the Divine office,

and I just wanna share something quickly to you, with you, sorry.

From St. Augustine and that's, yeah, that's what got me onto the Saints, uh,

St. Augustine's, one of the great ones.

And I love talking to people about Saint Augustine.

Why?

Because he was a, he was a fornicator.

He was a profligate, fornicator.

I often like to say to audiences that one of the interesting thing

about the Saints is that not all of them, but many of them had the most.

Colorful backgrounds and St. Augustine's real churn struggle with coming

to faith was concupiscence, right?

Was struggling with, with lust.

And so I'm just sharing that to tell you that one of our greatest

saints was somebody who we believe fathered an illegitimate child.

Um, that's an unfortunate word, isn't it?

Illegitimate father to child outside of the sacrament of marriage.

Let's put it like that.

And.

Yet he becomes one of our greatest saints.

And I, and I say that to you to keep reminding you that, that God can

still do the most remarkable things in people's lives, regardless of the, you

know, what's the, what's the saying?

Every, every sinner has a future, and every or every saint has a

past and every sinner has a future.

So with that long introduction, let's very quickly get you on your way for the day.

This is from a, uh, a document from St. Augustine and it is called, it is

called, if I remember correctly, the, um, it is called the, it's his, um.

It's on the shepherds.

Here it is.

It's literally called on the shepherds.

So on the sermon of Saint Augustine on the shepherds.

And what he's doing is he's kind of just really, to be honest, he's

chastising people that, uh, you know, priests basically, or shepherds who

are not giving people the full truth.

And one of the things.

He draws the shepherd's attention to, as he says, you need to tell people

that this life's gonna be pretty difficult and pretty challenging, and

you also need to set them out of the sand onto the firm Rock of Christ.

So he's going, if you basically just tell people that everything's great and this

life's full of happiness, and just to look forward to all the good stuff, you're

not doing him a service as a pastor.

And I'll give you the particular line that he uses here.

He says, what kind of men are they referring to?

The shepherds?

What kind of men are they fearing to hurt?

Those they speak to?

Not only do not prepare them for imminent temptations, but even promise

the happiness of this world, which God did not promise to the world itself.

So when I read that, what what I do is I read these readings and I kinda

ask the Holy Spirit, is there anything here that would be useful to teachers?

And what struck me was.

I think it, we need to be careful in the education space that we construct a

reality for young people, where we kind of help them believe that everything

should go their way and that life should be pretty straightforward and happiness

and being happy is the goal of life.

That's a whole other podcast.

I often talk about that on stage, the relationship between happiness

and classical concepts of virtue, the way that we understand happiness.

As a psychological feeling, state is actually very new in human history.

So often parents will say, what do you want for your kids?

I want them to be happy.

And I'm like, well, you know, ax murderers can be happy.

So we want our kids to be virtuous and, but we also.

I think that we wanna lead them into this awareness that life can be

difficult and challenging, but when it is, it is the rock of Christ that will

sustain them through these challenges.

So what Augustine's getting at here is he goes, you know, don't just promise

people that it's all gonna be good.

Don't do it.

Don't, don't.

Just if you're a shepherd.

And I believe that as teachers and educators and leaders in Catholic

education, we are shepherding young people that if we do that.

We also need to say to them, you know, and of course not every day, right?

If we got up every day and said, Hey kids, remember, life's gonna be really awful.

Okay?

Everything's gonna be terrible and you are gonna have a really hard time

of it, and, and you should just, you know, suck it up and get through.

'cause heaven will be pretty cool.

Like, that's not the message.

The message is, Hey, there's gonna be a lot of beautiful stuff in life.

There's gonna be a lot of great stuff, but there's also gonna be significant

loss and hardship and pain and challenge.

And if you're listening to me, I'm sure you've already been through some of it.

A friend of mine in Florida emailed me the other day.

Asking for prayers for a family where their, their young son who's about

four and a half years old is just gone into hospice care for terminal cancer.

So yeah, we know, don't we, that there is so much suffering and hardship, but

what Augustine's saying is we need to tell our young people this, we need

to prepare them for this, but not leave them to Nile is more depression.

Right.

To say, Hey, this life's awful.

There's no meaning to any of it.

That's nihilism.

Right.

We don't, we're not doing that.

He keeps talking about the Rock of Christ.

So here's what he tells the pastors to do.

He says, raise them up from the sand.

Set them upon a rock.

Let those whom you wish to be a Christian live in Christ.

Let them note the indignities and sufferings of Christ.

Let them observe the sinless Christ paying for what they, for what he had not stolen.

Let them attend to the words of scripture telling them the Lord

chastises, everyone whom he accepts, let them prepare themselves.

For challenges and chastisement or else not seek to be accepted.

So look, he's basically saying, let's help our students know that difficulties

are gonna come, challenges are gonna come, hardships are gonna come.

Are you doing this with kindergarten?

Yes, but not bluntly.

Right?

Like you with very young children, you'd be like, oh, you know, there's times

when we're really happy and there's times when we get sad, but when we are sad.

Jesus is with us.

I mean, if you've got kindergarten kids, you'll, you'll have Jesus as the gentle

shepherd carrying the lambs, right?

But then if you've got students in the 12th grade, you can have a much more

sophisticated conversation with them about the difficulties and challenges of life.

But to finish, what I'm trying to point you towards here is that whether

it's kindergarten or year 12, we're simply helping them understand the

truth about the nature of reality.

Loss, suffering, hardships, chastisements difficulties.

And again, without going into more detail, Augustine in this particular

section really talks about that the Christians are probably gonna

have it tougher than anyone else.

You know, Jesus himself said, in this world, you will, you will have trouble.

But do not fear because I've overcome the world.

So what Augustine's saying is we're gonna have challenges.

But we wanna be on the rock.

We don't wanna be on the sand of nihilism, the sand of individual, of humanism.

We wanna be on this, the rock, the rock of Christ, that we are built on Christ,

that we enter into deeper and deeper relationship with Christ, and that

allows us to weather the storms of life.

And to be with Christ eternally.

Alright, so there, there you go.

There's a lot to that.

I hope that's useful just to think about as you go through your day as an educator,

you're gonna encounter young people going through all sorts of challenges.

Do not tell them that it is all rainbow sprinkles and unicorns.

Okay.

'cause it isn't.

Yes.

Tell them, Hey, hang in there.

Things could get better, things are gonna get better.

But do it through the lens of establishing them, them upon the rock.

Of Christ.

Alright, my friends.

God bless you.

I hope that's useful.

Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening.

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If you're on Instagram, you can find me at j doyle Speaks One word, j Doyle Speaks.

And if you'd like to book me to speak or other consultancy projects,

you can find everything you need to know about me at Jonathan.

doyle.co.

Dot co. God bless you my friend.

I hope this has been useful.

You and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.