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The Joy Of Leading Your Students To Christ
Episode 220th January 2023 • The Catholic Teacher Podcast • Jonathan Doyle
00:00:00 00:06:56

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In today's episode I share a great quote from Pope Benedict that reminds us that the encounter with Christ always leads to sharing that joy with others.

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Transcripts

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast,

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wherever you are out in the world.

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Thank you so much to so many of the people that sent me lovely emails

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yesterday, getting back on the airwaves, it was lovely to hear from people all

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over the world, from the us to Ireland.

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Here in Australia.

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Thank you so much.

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It's a great encouragement.

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And that is what this podcast is about.

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It's about a little bit of daily encouragement.

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For Catholic teachers, just like you all over the world.

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I pray my friends that you have some insight today.

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Into the incredible, precious, powerful work that you undertake.

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In this vocational journey through it is a vocation.

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This is not a job.

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This is a vocation.

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This is a partnering with God in the salvific mission.

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So the next time you're at a barbecue or a dinner, and someone says, what do you do?

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You say?

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Well, you know, to be honest, I partnered with God and his

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salvific mission in cosmic history.

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The conversation stopped.

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I wouldn't it.

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So, uh, just thank you so much for what you're doing everyday.

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This is what this podcast is about.

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If you're a new listener, please make sure you hit that subscribe

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button wherever you're hearing this.

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We're on all the major podcast platforms.

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So please do that.

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And I asked yesterday,

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If there's somebody that you'd really like me to interview somebody that a.

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Interest you or inspires you in Catholic education.

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I'm going to start doing some more longer form interviews with people.

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So.

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Just email me, Jonathan at Jonathan Doyle dot, uh, sorry.

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That's the other one?

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jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com Jonathan at one Catholic teacher.

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That's O N E.

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On Catholic teacher.com and let me know who you'd like me to, uh, to find

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out about and get them on the show.

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So let's do that now, today.

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I'm keeping with my current interest in Pope Benedict 16, I think a.

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This is like the old saying the gift that keeps on giving his theology.

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His writing is going to be blessing us for centuries and centuries to come.

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Like so many of the great men and women in church history, but

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today's a really simple quote that goes to very much to the heart of

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what you're doing every single day.

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As a Catholic educator, listen to this.

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He says anyone who has discovered Christ.

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Must lead others to him.

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A great joy.

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Cannot be kept to oneself.

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It has to be passed on.

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Uh, great joy cannot be kept to oneself.

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It has to be passed on so many thoughts.

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Go through my mind at this point.

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From the new Testament alone.

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Think of when the, you know, the first disciples.

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Encounter Jesus.

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And they come and see the one.

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And Andrew says, come and see the one that the prophets wrote about,

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you know, they encounter Christ.

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And then they go to Peter and say, we've, we've found the Messiah.

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We've found him.

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Have you seen that recent awesome show?

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The chosen.

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You remember that moment where, you know, Peter's like really,

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you you've found the Messiah.

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Of course you have.

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And you found a two headed fish as well.

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But there's this joy in Andrew that Christ has been discovered.

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I think, uh, you know, I'd love to try and pray the rosary every day and

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the joyful mysteries are so beautiful.

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Think of the visitation.

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What's Mary's first impulse.

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I've often joked on stage that if I was married, And, uh, you know, you

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find out that the, uh, that God himself is coming into the world through you.

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You'd be straight on Instagram, right?

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You'd be hashtag theater, cos hashtag mother of God.

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And, uh, and, and showing everybody be on Tik TOK straight away.

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What does Mary do?

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What's a first impulse ma Mary's first impulse is to go

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to her kins woman, Elizabeth.

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And the news goes with her, the joy.

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And of course, Elizabeth in the, in the visitation runs out.

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You.

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You know, there's joy is infectious.

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And it has to be passed on.

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I think of, uh, you know, some of you would know Karen and I were,

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were desperate to start a family when we were married and we weren't able

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to have children for a long time.

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Over six years.

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Of a journey with infertility.

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And then, uh, I think it was.

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We joked that we had a, we had a great relationship with the sisters of life.

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If any of you, sisters of life listening, welcome a board.

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And we asked them to pray for us.

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And all of a sudden we started getting pregnant.

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We had three kids in three and a half years.

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And I was wondering if we could.

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Ring ring the sisters of life and say, okay, you can stop praying now.

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But, um, the kids kept coming.

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But I wanted to share with you the exact moment.

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When we found out we were pregnant with our first child, who's now

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a teenager who incidentally.

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Yesterday asked me to teach her to drive.

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Oh, my gosh, that's a big step.

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And, uh, you know, Karen coming home from the doctor and knowing we were pregnant

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and that joy, that infectious joy that you immediately begin to share with everybody.

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So I love this quote from Pope Benedict, because if you've encountered Christ,

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he says, you must lead others to him.

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A great joy cannot be kept to oneself.

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It has to be passed on if you do one thing in Catholic education.

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And if that just one thing is to help one young person be or

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encounter Christ, come to know Jesus.

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Come to.

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Build their life upon him.

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Then that is a remarkable achievement and something that you should

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be incredibly proud of and find great solace and consolation in.

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So my friend, if you have encountered Christ in your own life, I ain't on

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the spiritual, life's a long journey.

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Isn't that?

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We have highs.

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We have lows.

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We have times when cross feels incredibly close.

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And other times it's like the transfiguration when he, when, when

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the cloud covers him on the mountain and we go, ah, Jesus, where did you go?

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Kinda need some help right now.

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But, uh, if you've encountered him, the imperative is to lead others to him.

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So how do you do it?

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It's every class it's just.

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You know, I, when I was teaching, I would often just really take prayer

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seriously at the start of the list.

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And especially things like silence, giving students a little moment of silence.

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And modeling for them that you take Christ seriously modeling

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for them that you invite Christ into the start of every lesson.

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And those little things can make a huge difference.

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All right.

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That's it from me.

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So.

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That is all I wanted to say today.

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You may find floating around here, a link to Calendly.

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I am.

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Doing some coaching for Catholic principals leaders, uh, anybody

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who's working in Catholic education that could do with some support, um,

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some practical support in terms of.

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Leading their community.

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With sort of my background in, in multiple different areas.

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So if you'd like to book some time just to talk to me, uh, for free,

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there's a 30 minute free spot there.

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So check out that Calendly link and we can look at some coaching in your journey

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of Catholic educational leadership.

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All right, everybody.

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That's it for me today.

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Please make sure you've subscribed.

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I would love you to share this with people.

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My name's Jonathan Doyle.

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This has been the Catholic teacher daily podcast.

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And you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.

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