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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Tuesday, April 25th, 2020. Today is also the feast day of St. Mark the evangelist. According to tradition, St. Mark, his real name was John Mark. And we hear about him briefly in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He traveled with St. Paul and was a big part of the evangelization

work of the early church. One of my favorite stories about St. Mark is that the first time he

left Jerusalem, left his family to go with St. Paul, he got scared and went back home. And St. Paul actually got pretty frustrated with him. But he worked on it. He was a man of prayer. And he did go back into the mission fields and became a trusted companion

of St. Paul. So if you ever hesitate or go back and feel ashamed a little bit of that,

don't worry. We have saints that have done the same thing and have still contributed to

Christianity and to Christ's church in incredible ways, like St. Mark and his gospel that we still

read today. So today we are going to have just a really fun story told by Father Kyle

Colossack. But before we get there, please join me in reciting the concluding prayer for the divine mercy chaplet.

In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

Eternal God in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible,

look kindly upon us and increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to your holy will, which is love and mercy itself. Amen.

And so now I turn you over to Father Kyle Kowalsik and the story of Tommy

and his adventures at Mass.

This is a story about Tommy. Every Sunday, Tommy's family drove to a funny-looking building with a lowercase tea on the

roof of it. Tommy knew it was a tea because he had just finished first grade and he knew how to write and

read all the letters. His teacher had told his parents, Tommy is a very good speller and he has

quite the imagination.

Perhaps he'll be a writer one day. But Tommy did not want to be a writer. He wanted to be a

superhero, or a ninja, or a knight. Tommy didn't necessarily like going to the funny building

with the tea on top, but one Sunday, that all changed. His family had arrived a little bit

early. Well, that is to say, they had actually arrived on time for once. And that's when Tommy saw

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