You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, December 3rd, 2018. It is also the feast day of St. Francis Xavier, as well as the first Monday of Advent. So welcome to Advent, my friends. This week, we are going to be talking about Advent as we get ready to talk about the Jesse Tree.

Now, we can't cover all of the characters in the Jesse Tree because there's simply too many.

And we also can talk about all the things that happened in the Old Testament because a lot of things happened.

But we're going to try to talk about some of the details that you might not be talking about

with your Jesse Tree devotion. So first of all, let's talk about Advent. Now the word Advent means

coming. Coming. Who do you think is coming? Well, Jesus, of course,

the whole season of Advent is about hopeful waiting. Now notice, I didn't say that Advent is about decorating or shopping or having parties.

No, none of those things make sense in Advent. Advent is about waiting. Advent is a time for us to remember

and explore God's beautiful promise to send a Savior to spare us

from both sin and death. As we will see, original sin, which Adam and Eve committed in the

Garden of Eden, separated us from God.

It made us sinful beings who choose poorly, who turn our backs on God.

We could not save ourselves.

We could not fix this relationship with God on our own.

No only God could do that.

But he had to do it in a way where we could actually learn how to love, and that took time. It took hundreds and hundreds of years. God slowly worked on the

hearts of his people. He gave them prophets and messages and signs and prepared them to receive

the Savior, Jesus Christ, whom we welcome on Christmas. And so Advent is about waiting. Just as the

Israelite people waited for hundreds of years for the Savior,

we wait for the four weeks of Advent. Now, four weeks doesn't sound very long when you compare it

to hundreds of years of waiting that the Israelites did. And it's really not. And so, my friends, I challenge you a big challenge today.

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