Artwork for podcast The Catholic Teacher Podcast
Learning To Cooperate With God In A Catholic School
Episode 5318th August 2022 • The Catholic Teacher Podcast • Jonathan Doyle
00:00:00 00:10:02

Share Episode

Shownotes

In today's message I share a great insight from Saint Augustine about how every Catholic teacher can cooperate more deeply with God and become a deeper and richer channel of grace.

Grab your free access to my awesome resource for Catholic teachers right here:

https://cf.onecatholicteacher.com/oct-opt-in

Find out about booking Jonathan to come and speak at your school or event

https://cf.onecatholicteacher.com/catholic-speaking

Youtube version is here:

https://youtu.be/tZAMKJ91v98

Transcripts

Speaker:

Well, Hey everybody.

Speaker:

Jonathan Doyle with you.

Speaker:

Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher.

Speaker:

Pretty much daily podcast.

Speaker:

I do try to get to this as regularly as possible.

Speaker:

Cause it's really important.

Speaker:

You guys are doing incredible work out there in the broad

Speaker:

field of Catholic education.

Speaker:

I know I'm talking to principals, bishops, priests, classroom

Speaker:

teachers, support teachers, custodians janitors, grounds keepers.

Speaker:

People working in the front office, teacher librarians.

Speaker:

I know that, ah, this listenership, it's a beautiful gift of such great

Speaker:

diversity across the whole range of Catholic education on this big, beautiful

Speaker:

planet that we are sharing together.

Speaker:

On the journey towards home.

Speaker:

It's going to be great.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

And finally, get home, get back to the father's house can be so good.

Speaker:

Mansions.

Speaker:

All of that translation power.

Speaker:

We get a mansion who doesn't want to mention, right.

Speaker:

Seriously.

Speaker:

I don't know, maybe some of the desert fathers, you know, and

Speaker:

desert fathers and desert mothers.

Speaker:

They like living in.

Speaker:

Little caves, but I guess I'll just have to accommodate the mansion in the

Speaker:

father's house when they get there.

Speaker:

I digress.

Speaker:

Welcome aboard, please make sure you've subscribed.

Speaker:

Go and hit that big subscribe button on the podcast app here.

Speaker:

It makes a great difference.

Speaker:

I'd love you to leave a review, a rating.

Speaker:

And listen, the bid, the best thing you can do is just, if you like what you hear.

Speaker:

Just share it with other Catholic teachers put on your social feeds, send

Speaker:

it out to other teachers in your school.

Speaker:

It's just beautiful to see it grow.

Speaker:

Uh, and there's links here.

Speaker:

So in the show notes here on your podcast app, you should be able

Speaker:

to find a link to get free access.

Speaker:

To the, uh, Catholic teacher formation program called

Speaker:

going deeper that we created.

Speaker:

And also you can, uh, there's really cool video there, but Hey, you can

Speaker:

book me to speak and there should be a link across to the YouTube channel.

Speaker:

So there's video versions of this.

Speaker:

When I do the Meech day, I record a separate video, separate podcast version.

Speaker:

So if you liked the video versions, get, check them out.

Speaker:

The link is there.

Speaker:

You ready to begin your comfortable?

Speaker:

He is sitting somewhere nice.

Speaker:

Hopefully you don't have headphones in sitting with you.

Speaker:

Feet up on a desk in your classroom where your students bouncing off the walls.

Speaker:

I'm sure you're not doing that, but wherever you are.

Speaker:

Let's begin my friends today.

Speaker:

We're going to talk about a very simple quote from St.

Speaker:

Augustine.

Speaker:

You know, one of the great things about Saint Augustan is that he just reinforces

Speaker:

this wonderful truth that the, the, uh, the gallery of sites, the great panoply

Speaker:

of saints in the heavenly realm is made up of the most extraordinarily wonderfully.

Speaker:

A collectic diverse mix of humans that you can imagine we've got.

Speaker:

Men and women from all sorts of backgrounds and all Gustin as a

Speaker:

scientist, one interesting ones.

Speaker:

He was.

Speaker:

A man of questionable morals, my friends, he was a, he

Speaker:

fathered illegitimate children.

Speaker:

He was a raging party animal.

Speaker:

Until, of course his massive conversion.

Speaker:

Um, When he heard that mystical voice said totally Lego.

Speaker:

Again, take up and read.

Speaker:

And then the words of scripture changed his life and set him

Speaker:

on a completely new path.

Speaker:

Isn't it.

Speaker:

Great.

Speaker:

How the gospels do that?

Speaker:

How the scriptures do that.

Speaker:

Uh, be at rest assured that, um, if someone like Senator Gustin can go from a

Speaker:

life of elicit behaviors to becoming such a great Saint, then there is hope for me.

Speaker:

And there is hope for you.

Speaker:

My friend, Sandy Gustin gives us this beautiful quote.

Speaker:

He says,

Speaker:

He who made you without your cooperation?

Speaker:

Will not save you.

Speaker:

Without your cooperation.

Speaker:

He who made you without your cooperation will not save

Speaker:

you without your cooperation.

Speaker:

It's a very powerful statement.

Speaker:

It's the it's drawing our minds immediately to the one great truth of

Speaker:

existence itself that we didn't choose it.

Speaker:

God, didn't come to us in the celestial realms before we inhabited our body.

Speaker:

And said, Hey, listen, I'm thinking of creating you.

Speaker:

What do you think you're interested?

Speaker:

Yes.

Speaker:

No.

Speaker:

Do you want to just hang out here as a disembodied spirit?

Speaker:

In the celestial realms forever, or do you want to be an embodied

Speaker:

human soul in enfleshed human soul?

Speaker:

We didn't get that choice God in his great wisdom and love will dust into existence

Speaker:

in love, through love and for love.

Speaker:

Uh, our creation and our destiny and love.

Speaker:

So we didn't get to make a choice about that one.

Speaker:

Here we are.

Speaker:

This is where we find ourselves, but there is a choice according to Augusta

Speaker:

that we are going to have to make.

Speaker:

We didn't get to choose if God made us, but we do get to choose

Speaker:

if we would like God to save us.

Speaker:

Well, I guess the first part is the realization that we need to be

Speaker:

saved from what, from ourselves.

Speaker:

From sin itself from original sin from all of the things that

Speaker:

draw us away from relationship.

Speaker:

With a heavenly father.

Speaker:

So we, if we were able to save ourselves, I figured we would have done it by now.

Speaker:

If Adam and Eve had figured out a way to get back into the garden, I'm

Speaker:

sure they would've worked it out.

Speaker:

Uh, but they didn't.

Speaker:

And we that we haven't.

Speaker:

You know, Uh, after my Roman holidays or the family, I do a lot of cycling

Speaker:

and, uh, there's this road right out into the rain forest up on the coast.

Speaker:

And somebody has built this beautiful retreat center.

Speaker:

It's really fancy.

Speaker:

Um, like, I don't know.

Speaker:

It's, it's really impressive.

Speaker:

But, uh, it's got, uh, it's called Eden.

Speaker:

It's got this massive sign at the front, says Eden.

Speaker:

And I remember the first time I sort of like, oh, I've done it.

Speaker:

I've found Eden.

Speaker:

Is, it looks like eight is a beautiful place.

Speaker:

You know, but I'm sure that if I jumped that fence, I wouldn't find

Speaker:

myself back in the aid and that we'd all like to get to some, our point

Speaker:

is that we can't save ourselves.

Speaker:

So, you know, we're invited into this cooperation with God

Speaker:

that if we want to be saved,

Speaker:

That all we have to do is cooperate.

Speaker:

I want to talk about that and its relationship to our Catholic Christian

Speaker:

vocations, particularly for most of my listeners in the education space

Speaker:

that God is trying to do something with you and through you in the world,

Speaker:

you see, God doesn't tend to show up.

Speaker:

In physical manifestation and just transform the planet.

Speaker:

Uh, you know, you know, I often say that audiences that have.

Speaker:

You know, if the Trinity suddenly appeared in full celestial glory in front of you.

Speaker:

It's a good chance your brain would explode.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

But it has, I had, does God act in the world when he acts through us.

Speaker:

He X through us.

Speaker:

You know, if a child is struggling,

Speaker:

It is your pastoral solicitude, your pastoral presence with

Speaker:

them, your conversation, your wisdom, and counsel and guidance.

Speaker:

That is the action of God into the world.

Speaker:

You know, I was talking to some people on a conference call

Speaker:

this morning in the states and.

Speaker:

And I was sort of saying, you know, Catholic schools are

Speaker:

such a unique communities.

Speaker:

They're like ships traveling the great ocean of time.

Speaker:

And on that ship, there are these souls and we can create these

Speaker:

really beautiful communities.

Speaker:

That affect the people in them and affect the wider community.

Speaker:

And you see all we need to do.

Speaker:

Is cooperate.

Speaker:

So, how do we cooperate?

Speaker:

Well, I thank the Lord for this beautiful Catholic church we're members of,

Speaker:

because we have the helps of the faith.

Speaker:

We have the sacraments, we have the magisterium, we have this beautiful

Speaker:

wisdom and teaching that's come down for thousands of years, but most importantly,

Speaker:

of course we have the sacramental life.

Speaker:

We have the life of prayer.

Speaker:

We have the scriptures.

Speaker:

You see, this is how we cooperate.

Speaker:

We make time for God.

Speaker:

We make time for God.

Speaker:

You know, I sit on this conference call today.

Speaker:

You cannot do a supernatural task with only natural resources.

Speaker:

Catholic education is a supernatural task.

Speaker:

It's not temporal.

Speaker:

It's not purely in this realm of existence.

Speaker:

It transcends the boundaries of space, time and reality, because we are

Speaker:

talking about great spiritual truths.

Speaker:

We're talking about revealing the person of Christ.

Speaker:

To young people, to their families and to each other, as colleagues on this journey.

Speaker:

So my friends.

Speaker:

Cooperate.

Speaker:

God, didn't ask us if we wanted to be created, but he is asking

Speaker:

us if we want it to be saved.

Speaker:

If you want to work with him in this role of salvation, his

Speaker:

ministry and mission of salvation.

Speaker:

So just think about it.

Speaker:

Just go, am I cooperating?

Speaker:

How am I cooperating?

Speaker:

And my praying am I getting to mass?

Speaker:

Uh, you know, and it's not ticket box friends, it's not ticket box it's I go

Speaker:

to mass because it's the fount of grace.

Speaker:

It's the source and the summit of the faith.

Speaker:

I go there because that's where the grace is.

Speaker:

I say on stage all the time, I'm not, I'm not fancy.

Speaker:

I just quite Forrest Gump.

Speaker:

I may not be an intelligent man, Jenny, but I know what love is.

Speaker:

I was a really bad American accent story on my American listeners.

Speaker:

I will do better next time.

Speaker:

But you get the point, right?

Speaker:

Like that.

Speaker:

Um, that I just go with the Gracies and the graces at the

Speaker:

holy sacrifice of the mass.

Speaker:

So I go there and that's how I try to cooperate.

Speaker:

And hopefully those graces flow through.

Speaker:

So friends summary.

Speaker:

God is looking for your cooperation.

Speaker:

He's not looking for your perfection.

Speaker:

He's not looking for your brilliance.

Speaker:

He is not there hoping.

Speaker:

Oh, I look at that.

Speaker:

Look at that person.

Speaker:

They're so talented.

Speaker:

If only they cooperate with me, then I'd be hoping to do more.

Speaker:

God's God, he is pure subsistent being.

Speaker:

He requires nothing.

Speaker:

You cannot add anything to God.

Speaker:

He's doing us the favor friends.

Speaker:

It's not the other way.

Speaker:

So, uh, let's go operate.

Speaker:

Let's look for ways to cooperate today, let's be, has to have cooperative

Speaker:

hearts and spirits, generous cooperative hearts and spirits.

Speaker:

All right.

Speaker:

God bless you.

Speaker:

That's it for today.

Speaker:

Get you.

Speaker:

Get the YouTube channel.

Speaker:

If you haven't seen it yet.

Speaker:

Um, You can just, uh, hopefully you can click the link here in the show

Speaker:

notes on the podcast app, or you can, uh, I guess if you go on YouTube and

Speaker:

search me, I've got two channels.

Speaker:

You'll find me there.

Speaker:

Um, just look for Catholic teacher, Jonathan Doyle, you

Speaker:

should find me on YouTube.

Speaker:

Click the link.

Speaker:

It's much easier.

Speaker:

All right, everybody.

Speaker:

God bless you.

Speaker:

Um, on Beck speaking, I'm just so pumped.

Speaker:

I'm uh, next week I got a big one in here in Australia with a few hundred teachers.

Speaker:

We're going to, we're going to talk about how to.

Speaker:

Come back from COVID how to rebuild relationships and connections.

Speaker:

And, uh, you know, my heart for teachers, I teach on burnout,

Speaker:

resilience, faith mission.

Speaker:

Uh, and then practical stuff where you really useful tools

Speaker:

of peak performance and personal development that we can use to grow.

Speaker:

As people so that we can love more and contribute more.

Speaker:

So if you'd like me to speak, make sure you click that link and find

Speaker:

out more about how you can book me.

Speaker:

All right friends.

Speaker:

God bless you, everybody.

Speaker:

This has been the Catholic teacher, pretty much daily podcast.

Speaker:

My name's Jonathan Doyle.

Speaker:

And you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube