One of the great pieces of good news in my spiritual journey has been the gradual realisation that I don't have to become a saint by effort alone. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if we could just try harder, overcome bad habits and be nicer to people then the path to heaven would be straight.

In today's message I share with you a beautiful quote from Father Jacques Philippe that reminds us that we are not alone and that we can trust that God will be faithful to his promises.

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Hi guys, Jonathan Doyle with you here.

Welcome to the daily message for Catholic teachers.

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And today we are going to jump in to a quote from the rather

wonderful father, Jack Felipe.

Now some of you would be familiar with this guy he's been, um, I

hate using language like this, but he's kind of become a bit of a.

Catholic mystical priestly prayer rockstar in the last few years, um, in the Pantheon

of great Catholic priest, rockstars, but really writing some beautiful stuff.

And most spiritual director suggested that I rate him and my wife, Karen

has been reading him for a long time.

So I want to share with you a beautiful, quiet today from some of

his work that I hope you're gonna love.

We do not have to become saints by our own paths.

We have to learn how to let God make us into saints.

Anybody that has seen me live over the years knows that I have this

crazy idea that we can become saints so that we're meant to become sites.

So yesterday I went shoe shopping with my oldest daughter

and, uh, which was awesome.

I learned a lot.

I grew up with all brothers.

So taking teenage girls, shopping for shoes is a whole new thing.

We had a great time, but we ended up talking about.

You know the purpose of the Christian life as you do with your teenage

daughter while she's shopping.

And, you know, we, we talked about this idea about becoming

science and I began to teach her.

I said, you know, people have these ideas that, you know, being a Saint means that

you're super pious and you never seen.

And I told her that, you know, there are Catholic scientists who

have been prostitutes, Catholic science that have been involved

in serious crime since Stephen.

By every definition of the law was an accessory to first degree murder.

He held the clothes of the Pharisees when they, um, when sin, sorry.

So, uh, Paul held the clothes of the Pharisees while

since Stephen was stoned to.

And then Paul goes on to become one of the greatest Christian figures in history.

So if we want to, the first thing we need to do is disabuse ourselves of the notion

that, uh, to be a site, you can't have a past, in fact, many of you would know that

many of our greatest sites at a definite past, you know, um, Ignatius of Loyola,

you know, Fort and probably kill people.

Um, Augustine father did legitimate.

So if perfect sanctity before conversion was, was the criteria for sainthood,

we would have a lot less sites.

So let that be an encouragement.

I'm not encouraging you to go and do those things, by the way, let's just be clear.

It's important.

So what we find is that, you know, we don't have to be

perfect to begin the journey.

The second part is.

What does it mean to be a site?

I think essentially what it means is that we become fully, or we

allow God to make us fully, who we always saw that we could be.

And look, I know some of you could, we could go deep into all sorts of other

theological definitions, but I think it's this process by which God removes all of

that, which is not who he wants us to be.

And what we're left with is.

This beautiful.

I mean, there's so many images for this, right?

Like if you read John of the cross in detail St.

John of the cross, he gives this example of like a, a log that gets put on a fire.

And he said that the log goes through all these stages.

Right?

If you think about a log on a fire, we had a fire here at, uh,

last night and not in the studio.

I mean, uh, at the house outdoors with friends, we didn't set fire to the house.

Okay.

And he put a log on.

The first thing that happens is you see, you know, the smoke all comes out of it.

And then over time there might be water that sizzles on the end

of the log and water begins to get driven out of the timber.

And sometimes you'll see insects or, you know, cockroaches or bugs might

come flying out from under the bark.

And then over time, the log transforms doesn't it until eventually the log

literally becomes like the fire.

So eventually the, the, the.

Changes its state and becomes one with what is consuming it.

And John of the cross, you used that as a metaphor for the spiritual life is that

there's a process by which God is removing the impurities and the brokenness from our

lives and transforming us into himself.

And of course, scripture tells us that he wants to transform

us into the image of his son.

I don't want to go too deep down that theological rabbit hole, but I

just want to be really clear that the purpose of the Christian life is to

become a site as to get home to Jesus, to get home to heaven and bring as

many people as possible because they have lots of room man, Jens, even.

So that's the purpose of Christian life.

And then we're called to become science and the process by which it happens.

Was beautifully articulated by father Henry Nouwen.

Who said that God's doing it through his, the term, the

concrete circumstances of our life.

The real circumstances of our lives.

So what I've been saying to Catholic teachers for many years is this is

it's like your vocation, your work as a Catholic educator, the difficult

people, the difficult students, that is the place, the concrete circumstances

of your life, where God is inviting you to holiness, to sanctity.

And of course we're broken, right?

So.

And that's okay because we need grace.

But the first thing I want you to do is begin to realize that you

were called into this vocation of being a Catholic teacher, and God is

allowing these circumstances to be an invitation for you to grow in holiness.

You know, Karen and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary

last week and my daughter and I were talking about it yesterday.

And.

And I said, you know, this is the beauty of God's plan for marriage and family

and all our imperfections and in all our brokenness as a, as a couple and as

individuals and as a family and all the imperfections we have, but it's this daily

grind, this reality of living closely with people that shapes your breaks.

You're right.

And a Catholic school is a community of people that are on

that, on a similar kind of journey.

Right.

You're rubbing up against each other.

So.

First is the reminder that I want you to begin to see the concrete circumstances

of your daily vocational life, whether it's marriage, parenting, single life,

religious life, and then your practical vocation as an educator is ways in

which God is allowing circumstances to invite you to sanctity of life.

The second thing is if we go back to father Jack Phillips quite.

Do you notice how he says that it's not up to us to make ourselves

science, because if that was true, we'd be somewhere between, uh, what

they called Neo Pelagianism and Nietzschean, you know, will to power.

Um, if you're not familiar with those terms, there's an ancient

heresy of Pelagianism, which was that Christ has given us

everything that we need to be holy.

But the problem is that we're not trying hard enough.

We just need to work harder.

So it's a striving struggle you're right.

Which, which doesn't have a lot of room for grace and then on the other, you

know, and then you've got Nietzsche and will to power, which is that we

just got to that, we've got a vision.

What we want me to just got to, you know, use our will to create the

reality that we want and the longer I live, here's what I think we're broken.

We've really broken and we carry all these wounds.

And if you know me, if you'd known me over my life journey, I used to hate that.

I just didn't.

I did not like hearing people say it.

I thought it was weak, but the longer I've lived and wrestled with all

this stuff, I'm like, we're broken.

Some of us are less broken than others.

Some of us are really broken.

I'm sure you can think of a couple of people at your school that fit that

category, but we're loved anyway, and grace is available and it's the beauty

of our Catholic faith is that it, it, you know, of all the faiths of all.

Splintering Christian sex and professions and all the world religions.

I still think that Catholicism gets it as close to reality is as we can get, right.

Because it's basically, it sees the truth of what we're

like and what we're capable of.

And then we need grace.

And then if we put all that stuff together and accept it, then God can do.

Really astounding and he does right.

Cause that's how you get to raise a legit.

Let's say you get, you know, mother Teresa of Calcutta.

That's how you get blessed at Solanas Casey.

You get these simple little people that get it and they get the broken this part.

And then they just throw wide the gates to grace and incredible stuff happens.

So I didn't want to be this long, but.

The purpose of your life is to get home to heaven and to bring

as many people as possible with you, including your students.

The place that happens is in the vocational state of life that you live

and for you watching and listening to this, it's also the vocational

state of being a Catholic educator.

How cool is that that God has created the circumstances by

which he wants you to become holy.

And if that's what he's done, then he's not throwing you to the wolves.

He's not left you there just to figure this out on your own.

We just.

Should we just need to, to, to, to reorient our vision, we need to reorient

our sense of what's actually happening.

It's not a job.

These aren't just terrible people.

These aren't just ungrateful students are right.

Jesus.

This difficult child is your invitation.

To me doesn't mean we accept abuse.

Doesn't mean we accept intolerable circumstances, but if we begin to

shift our perception of what might be happening, powerful stuff can happen.

All right.

Please make sure.

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My name is Jonathan dial.

I'll have another message for you tomorrow.