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Catholic Sprout

The Daily Podcast for Catholic kids

that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Spouse. Today is Thursday, January 18th, 2024. This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are talking about the five precepts of the church, these five low, basic things that we have to do in order to be truly Catholics. And we

are talking about these to celebrate a brand new series, which we just created with the

Augustine Institute and formed called the Catholic Parent, that celebrates the beautiful and

unique way that we live out these precepts as a Catholic

family. We've already talked about the first precept, going to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days

of Obligation, the second confession once a year, and the third, Eucharist, once a year.

Today we're moving on to the fourth, but before we get there,

please join me in praying the prayer for students. In the name of the Father and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, our God, in your wisdom and love, you surround us with the mysteries of the universe.

Send your spirit upon us and fill us with your wisdom and blessings.

Grant that we may devote ourselves to our studies.

Through them, draw us ever closer to you, the source of all knowledge. We ask this through Christ,

our Lord, amen. And so the fourth precept is that if we are going to truly be Catholic,

we need to observe days of fasting and abstinence. And so just to make this clear, here is specifically

what this means. So throughout the whole year, all Fridays are days of penance. Now the church

allows us to decide what that means, but it's a day for us to do some sort of small penance, some small offering of suffering to God.

It can be giving up meat, but it can also be limiting screens or taking on something else.

Days of abstinence, these are days when we do not eat meat,

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