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

Green junk Squires today. Greetings, Young Squire Spouts. Today is the sixth day in the fifth month in the year of our Lord,

2023.

My name is Sir Roland Paderlot, and you're listening to Saturdays with Sir Roland O'Cathic Sprouts,

where every Saturday we discuss the art of Dragon Slain.

We're in the middle of a discussion on the indigo dragon of gluttony named Gula.

Last week we heard a letter from another one of my favorite legendary dragon slayers,

St. Therese of Lassou, and she taught us how her little way of doing small acts of kindness

and sacrifices with great love is an excellent method of training to slay Gula.

Today we must learn to wield the weapon of virtue that will help us master these small acts of

kindness, and that weapon is temperance. Temperance means to have self-restraint or moderation.

It comes from the root word temper, which we're all familiar with. Think of the word temperature,

which also has temper as its root word. Extreme temperatures means it gets excessively hot or cold, which we don't like.

We like moderate temperatures. Moderation has the same root as moderate. So temperance is about

avoiding extremes. When we lose our temper, it means our emotions or anger get

out of control, as we discussed with the blue dragon of wrath. When we fall for the lies of the yellow

dragon of sloth, we hit the other extreme and have no passion or energy at all. Greed, or the green

dragon, is about wanting excessive stuff or getting out of control and our desire to own more things or have more money.

And when it comes to gluttony or the indigo dragon named Gula, we need temperance to help us avoid excessive eating or drinking or allowing our appetite to get out of control.

Temperance is a form of self-discipline that can help us against all these dragons.

And the word discipline comes from the saint root word as disciple.

We want to be disciples of Christ.

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