Today is the feast day of St. Scholastica who was the sister of St. Benedict in the 5th century. I share a simple insight from her remarkable life that can help us all realise the power of being witnesses in the vocation of Catholic educaiton.

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Well, Hey everybody.

Jonathan Doyle with you.

Once again, my friends for the Catholic teacher daily podcast,

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Let's jump in.

Regular listeners know I say this quite frequently, but, uh, one of

the things I love about my Catholic faith is just the rhythms, the

rhythms, the rhythms and routines.

That keep me so grounded.

Uh, you know, sometimes.

Gosh, isn't it beautiful.

It's just.

The faith, my Catholic faith, it kind of grounds me.

And one of those practices of course, is praying the divine office most days.

And today my friends, wherever you are in the world, or I could be here in Australia

where a day we're easily a day ahead.

Of many listeners because of, uh, of time zones, but today's

the feast of Saint Scholastica.

Who is the sister of Saint Benedict.

So we're talking fifth century.

And, uh, one of the great, uh, Catholic saints.

And as I was praying the office for her today.

Something really jumped out at me.

And often for me, this is how the holy spirit works.

Like I sort of read something and it just resonates.

And there's a sense to share it with you.

And it's very simple.

The first antifungal.

And to fawn and Tiffin,

please be accepting of my pronunciation.

The first Anton is, um, beautiful.

It's just so simple as this.

I will be a witness to Christ.

It is Christ that I seek with Christ.

I desire to be United.

Listen to that first part, I will bear witness to Christ.

So the saints, particularly, you know, their example.

Is ultimately an example of witnessing to the one whom they loved beyond all things.

And you know, earlier this week in the podcast, we had the feast of St.

Peter.

Some poor Mickey.

Uh, one of the Japanese martyrs of the 16th century.

Who's who's martyrdom.

Of course.

You know, it does many, many different things that operates on many different

levels, but ultimately it's a witness.

It's saying to the world.

I am so utterly convinced of the truth of what I believe that I am

prepared to suffer and die for it.

So I love this line here.

I will bear witness to Christ.

And as I prayed at this morning, there was a sense to just share

with you all as Catholic educators.

Isn't this in many ways, the essence of what we do.

That our task is yes.

It's to educate, to draw out.

The intelligence and gifts of every single student, but ultimately

it is to bear witness to Christ.

So, what did the apostles do?

Have you been watching the chosen.

A series that I've been watching, um, you know, one of the apostles do

they take the teaching of the master?

And they communicate that teaching to new people.

They witnessed to the, to their teacher.

You know, that's what a disciple is and particularly the apostles, right.

So in Catholic education, what we're ultimately trying to do is witness

to Christ is to live in such a way to be in such a way to teach in such

a way to interact with our students.

And our colleagues and families in such a way that we witness.

To our experience and our inquiry.

Encounter with Christ.

And that leads me to the, um, The responsory from this

morning and the response.

To the scripture reading here in the divine office was,

uh, my heart has said of you.

I have sought your presence.

It is your face that I will continue to seek.

So I want to look about.

Let's briefly talk about this kind of circular relationship here.

Between bearing witness to Christ and the constant seeking of Christ.

And his presence.

Do you see this kind of this relationship here, even in today's divine office,

you see this, this sense of that it is seeking the presence of Christ,

deepening a relationship with him that then allows us to witness to Christ.

So if we're kind of not sort of seeking his presence, Then it's hard to witness.

So for many years, I guess, you know, I often say that I get surprised

when people keep booking me.

Cause I don't have much to say except the basic few things.

Right.

I keep saying the same things ever since I've been a speaker,

it's kind of like, look.

We're crediting the image of God.

We have this incredible potential and capacity.

But left to ourselves.

I track record is not great.

Right.

So, what we need is to be in the presence of Christ and how do we do that?

Well, we do it primarily through the sacraments, through prayer.

We can do it through creation.

We can do through scripture, Scotty study, what we call the helps of the faith.

Right.

But if we're not doing any of those things, then we eventually ended

up drawing on an empty well, and I think this epidemic of burnout.

In education now it's it is complex because it's to do with a whole

bunch of factors, the complexity of the vocation, all the demands

and pressures that keep increasing.

So I'm not just saying that if people are burning out, it's

because they're not holy enough.

It's definitely not that.

But I wonder that if we draw more deeply, Into dependence on Christ that he'll

carry us through these challenging times.

So friends.

Summary that what we're really about and Catholic education is witnessing.

We don't want to get bogged in the weeds.

Right.

We don't want to get caught down those rabbit trails of, you know, That the

whole purpose of what we're doing is to get kids into college and university,

and we need to get them the best.

That's the outgrowth.

That's the result.

Of a heart given over to Christ at six, the best for young people.

But I think you might agree that often in education that's become the whole thing.

It's become the purpose.

So we need to keep our eyes fixed on the author and perfecter of our faith.

Right?

We need to remember why we're here in the first place in Catholic education.

We're here to be witnesses to Christ.

And we do that by seeking his presence.

And since Scholastica is a great example of that, somebody who chose a

radical form of life, because more than anything else in the law, in the world,

more than her own success, more than, you know, public approval, what she

wanted more than anything was to be.

With Christ and here we are, you know what.

How many years later is, is it 1600 years give or take 1600 years, 1500 years.

He, we are all these centuries later.

And we're remembering this woman because primarily she was a witness to Christ.

And, uh, you know, maybe history is not going to remember each

of us quite the same way.

Right.

I've often been struck that my father's been dead now for maybe.

Ah, 10 years or so longer.

And what really struck me is his whole life, like after

the funeral and everything.

I remember I had this plastic bag and in this bag was a shirt that he used to wear.

And they'll often say that, you know, That when you lose somebody,

it's often that the smell of their.

Clothing and stuff is one of those things that stays with you, the long list and.

I've eventually remember even that disappeared from the clothing and.

Slowly, you know, His possessions were in storage or they were sold.

And I suddenly realized one day I thought, wow, his entire life.

Has.

Has come down to these few little possessions and even, you

know, when, when I pass on in.

You know, To heaven, God willing that he, his memory will slowly

disappear from the earth.

And I didn't get depressed by that.

I thought, well, okay.

So history only seems to remember a few of us.

So what are the rest of us doing?

And I just deeply believe that we don't get to know the answer to that question.

We don't it's mystery.

But what gives me constellation is to know that what we do does matter.

Yeah, maybe in 15, 1600 years from now, you and I won't be in the divine office,

but what we do today still matters.

Yeah.

That's that old line from gladiator with Russell Crowe, where he says

what we do today, it goes in eternity.

And I believe that I believe that it's each student you

interact with today does matter.

It is going to echo in eternity.

Sure you might not.

Uh, you might not get to be in stained glass in the future, but

don't let that take away from the importance of every single interaction.

That you undertake today in Catholic education because.

You know, Jesus sees it.

He sees everything and he remembers it all.

And after, when I spoke at the NCA convention, I remember saying to

people when you get to heaven, I think it's going to be like, you

know, Because time will be irrelevant.

You know, God's going to sit you down.

There'll be this big flat screen TV.

And he's going to show you all these interactions and say, Hey, remember that

conversation you had with that student.

You didn't think much of it, but guess what it did it did.

It impacted them like this, and then it's caused them to do this.

And then it took them on this direction.

And how else is he acting in history?

Right.

Telus has got acting in history of not through his saints.

It's not through people like you.

All right, that's it.

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But God bless everybody.

My name is Jonathan Doyle.

This has been the Catholic teacher.

Daily podcast and you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.