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

Hey there, sprouts. Today is Sprouts. Today is Thursday, February 23, 2003. Today is also the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. We are in Lent. Today is also the feast day of St. Polycarp. Now, St. Polycarp was a member of the early church.

He lived before the year 100. And what's so fascinating about St. Polycarp is that through him, we're able to see the way the church grew.

So, let's go back. So we had Jesus Christ who lived on the earth, was a human being, he suffered, died, rose from the dead, and all this time he gathered around him followers. The closest followers, of course, were the 12 apostles. One of them was St. John the Evangelist. St. John the Evangelist actually did not die a martyr. He lived a long life and he built around himself a community, a community of Christians where he taught, where they

practice charity and where they spread the faith. One of St. John the Evangelist's disciples was St. Polycarp. So St. Polycarp did not meet Jesus, but he met a follower of Jesus, and he learned the faith from him.

Afterwards, after he had been ordained a priest, he was then made a leader of the early church, and we know these leaders today as

bishops. So St. Polycarp became a bishop of a place called Smyrna, which is in modern-day

Turkey. And he was such a charismatic and powerful leader. Now, before he was the bishop there,

Christians, they would be told, you know, just come and give a pinch of incense to a pagan God. You don't really have to worship them. Just, you know, kind of worship them. And then you won't be killed. And so before this, the Christians would think, well, you know, it doesn't really matter. I'm just going to give a pinch of incense to the pagan God

and live. But then all the sudden things changed. In the next persecution, the Christians were

refusing, refusing to do this and preferring to die than even renounce the smallest amount of

their faith in Jesus Christ. So the officials were wondering what's changed, and they realized that what had changed

was St. Polycarp, that when he was the bishop, the Christians were stronger.

They were stronger in their faith and willing to die rather than denounce their faith in him.

Eventually, the authorities arrested St. Polycarp. When he refused to denounce his

faith, he was drug into a stadium where he was sentenced to die by being burned at the stake. However,

when the fire was built around him, it didn't touch him. Miraculously, the fire just stayed away from him,

no matter how they pushed it towards him. Finallyaculously, the fire just stayed away from him, no matter how they

pushed it towards him. Finally, this huge crowd that was gathered, they were on the brink of all

converting to Christianity because of this miracle. So the officials beheaded St. Polycarp.

But what is fascinating also is that people knew that St. Polycarp was a living saint. So even at that

moment of his death, people gathered his clothes, his body, and they venerated it. They saved

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