You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for August 25th, 2022. Today is also the feast day of King Louis of France. He was, of course, the king. He lived during the Crusades. And although he was very wealthy and could have lived a very selfish

life, Louis King of France was focused on helping the poor and oftentimes invited the poorest of

the poor to come have dinner with him. He led crusades into the Holy Land to reclaim the spots

where Jesus lived and died after it was invaded by Muslim forces, and he died on his second trip in the Crusades.

Now this week on the Catholic Sprout's podcast, we are talking about the universal call to holiness, how we are all called to be holy.

And if we accept that call, everyone, the world

will be radically changed. We talked about how love is why we pursue holiness and go through

all of this work and suffering. We talked about the practice of virtue, and today we're going

talk about the second point, which is prayer.

Now, I like to think about it this way. The only way that we can understand prayer and practice prayer correctly is if we

understand that prayer is having a relationship with Jesus.

Now, if you have ever made a friend and then life changed, maybe you're not in that same

class next year, or you're not playing the same sport, or you move away.

So let's say you have a friend and then something happens where you can't be together anymore,

you probably know what happens to that friendship. It ends. If you can't be together anymore, you probably know what happens to that friendship. It ends.

If you can't spend time with someone, if you never see them, if you never have time to speak with

them or anything, you're not friends with them anymore. And the same is true with Jesus.

If we just go to Mass on Sundays and the whole time we're totally distracted and we never make time for Jesus, we never speak to him,

we never listen to him, then we basically have no relationship with him. And there's a gospel story, a parable, where there's a

wedding and some silly bridesmaids don't have oil for their lamps. They run out, try to get some,

they come to the feast later, they knock on the door, and the bridegroom answers,

who we know symbolizes Jesus, and he won't let them in. And you know what he says to them?

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