You're listening to

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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Friday, August 18th, 2020. Today is also the feast day of St. Helena of Rome. St. Helena was born a pagan. She married a very powerful Roman soldier,

who eventually became the emperor. However,

when he became emperor, he decided that Helena was not fashionable enough to be the empress.

So he divorced her, sent her away penniless. She was forced to go out and find some friends and those that she found

ended up being Christians. So she converted. Eventually, her ex-husband died and her son became the

emperor. Her son, Constantine, had always loved his mother. He went to find her, brought her back, named

cities after her, put her picture on Roman coins. And eventually, Helena told her son about the faith

that she had found, about Jesus Christ. Constantine was not very interested in this new religion. He was much more

interested in fighting battles and expanding his empire. So that's what he did. He was out there

fighting to keep control of the Roman Empire. However, one day he found himself on the losing side

of a battle. A few days before this, he had prayed and

offered incense to a Roman god for victory in a battle. But today, when things were so desperate,

he actually knelt down and prayed to Jesus Christ. And in that moment, as history tells us, a cross appeared in the sky. And Constantine, he heard a voice say,

under this banner, you will find victory. So Constantine took charcoal and drew crosses on all of the shields of his men,

on the armor, on his own breastplate,

and they went out and they achieved a miraculous victory.

And Constantine was convinced.

He went back.

He abolished the laws that persecuted Christians of the Roman Empire.

He started building churches, and he gave his mother,

...