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Today is Friday, March 8th, 2019.

It is also the first Friday of Lent and the feast day of St. John of God.

This week on the Catholic Spouts podcast, we have been talking about our transition from ordinary time into the Lenton season. We discussed

Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, and we have been talking about some important saints that really help us

understand what Lent is all about. And today, we are going to continue talking about those saints

with today's saint, St. John of God.

Now, perhaps St. John of God isn't quite as familiar to you as some of the saints that we talk about, but that's totally fine.

We have so, so many saints in our Catholic tradition that we can always find another one to learn about.

So, St. John of God lived in the 1500s in Spain, a long, long time ago.

Life was very different for him than it is for us.

He was born to a family that had been wealthy, but when he was born

around that time, they were impoverished. Now, although the details of his early life are a little hard

to figure out, we know the St. John of God either ran away from home when he was very young or was

taken and kidnapped from home.

The grief from losing her son led to his mother's early death and thinking his son was lost.

His father joined a Franciscan order, leaving St. John of God an orphan as a small child.

He was forced to beg and eat whatever food he could find. Finally, he settled on being a shepherd.

After that, he joined the military and was part of the military or working as a shepherd for the early

years of his life. In fact, all the way up until he was 42 years old. He sort of lived this normal

life with all the normal sins and temptations of any one of his time. However, when he was 42

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