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Catholic sprouts

The daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, sprouts. Today is, Spouts.

Today is Monday, August 14th, 2020.

Today is also the feast day of St. Maximilian Colby.

St. Maximilian Colby was born in 1894 in Poland.

When he was a small boy, he already loved Jesus and Mary very much.

And one day while praying, he had a vision of Mary. And she presented him with two crowns,

the white crown of sainthood and the red crown of martyrdom. She asked St. Maximilian Colby which one he

wanted, and he said both. Now, as he grew, he eventually joined the Franciscan order and was ordained a

priest. He loved Mary very much. He started something called the militia of Mary Immaculate,

where he challenged people to really give themselves over to Mary's protection. He started a

newspaper and a radio station to promote Mary, Marian love and admiration. He traveled around the world, establishing monasteries, going as far as Japan.

However, St. Maximilian Colby lived during World War II.

Shortly after he arrived back in Poland from Japan, he was arrested by Nazis.

He was sent to Auschwitz, a notorious death camp.

And while he was there, he continued to practice to serve people as a priest. He would oftentimes crawl to people's bedside at night to hear their confession. He would smuggle in small scraps of bread so he could say

mass and distribute the Eucharist to other Catholics. He served others with joy, even though he

received some of the most terrible treatment in the camp. One day, one of the prisoners at Auschwitz

escaped, and to punish the rest of the inmates, the Nazi

officers selected 10 people to die in a brutal way. The last man that was selected cried out that he was a

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