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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Thursday, June 9th, 2022. All week on the Catholic Spouts podcast, we are talking about the patron saints of summer. We have already talked about the patron

saints of the beach, of good weather, of travel,

of barbecuing. And today we're going to talk about the patron saint of fireworks. Now, I don't

know about you, but I love fireworks in the summer. My town, I live in a small town. We are known for outrageous Fourth

of July celebrations, including a fabulous fireworks show. So the patron saint of fireworks is

St. Barbara. Now, St. Barbara lived in the 200th, and she lived in what is now Syria. So,

if you can remember, it was still illegal in almost the whole world to be a Christian up until the

mid-300s. So living in the 200s meant that being a Christian was very dangerous.

Barbara was born into a pagan family, but her family was very wealthy. And her father loved her,

but her father wanted to keep her safe and protected from all the bad influences in the world.

So legend has it that he built a high

tower and he locked Barbara in there. And yet, even though she was all alone, Barbara still

discovered Christianity, she fell in love with Jesus and she gave her life to Jesus.

So years and years Barbara lived up in this tower, and she was secretly a Christian.

Eventually, when she was of age, her father arranged a marriage for her, and he was shocked when she refused to marry this man because she was

going to give herself only to Jesus. Enraged, her father took her from the tower and brought

her to the authorities. There, she admitted that she was a Christian, and even as she was being

tortured, she refused to renounce her faith.

Now, miracles started to happen as Barbara was being tortured. Miraculously, each night when she went

back to the prison cell, her wounds from being tortured would miraculously heal. Also, there were accounts that when people tried to

burn her, the flames on torches would miraculously go out as soon as they touched her skin.

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