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Hey there, sproutsouts. Today is Wednesday, December 7th, 2022. Today is also the feast day of St. Ambrose,

an incredibly important saint from the three and four hundredths. But before we get to his story,

let's work on memorizing the verses that St. Cecilia has challenged us to memorize.

Powerful verses for Advent from the Book of Isaiah chapter 9, verses 5 and 6.

In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

For all the boots of the trampling warriors and all the garments rolled in blood,

shall we burned as fuel for the fire.

For a child has been born to us, a son given to us, authority rests on his shoulders,

and he is named, wonderful mighty god everlasting father prince of peace okay let's talk about st ambrose so st ambrose lived in rome that's where he was born

he was born in 340 which was right around the time when Emperor Constantine

stopped the persecution of Christians and made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire.

So almost overnight, it went from being illegal to be a Christian to suddenly everybody was

Christian. And this is what we talked about. And we were building churches. It was really a radical

time. So St. Ambrose lived during this time and he was brilliant, brilliant. He was a poet,

a speaker, a lawyer, a governor. Eventually, he ended up in Milan, Italy. Now, at the time, and we talked about this yesterday with St. Nicholas,

there was still a terrible heresy in the church called Arianism. Now, many people, including bishops, were beginning to believe this terrible

lie. This lie that Jesus Christ was not actually God, that he was like really, really awesome,

but he wasn't God. And now we know this is a lie. Jesus is God. He is part of the Trinity. So anyway, there was a lot of struggle in the church.

At the time in Milan, the bishop of Milan had believed the Aryan heresy. He died. And all of a sudden,

there was this great debate in Milan. Who's going to replace him?

Is it going to be another person that believes in the Aryan heresy or not?

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