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Catholic Sprout

The Daily Podcasts for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Thursday, May 30th, 2024. And guess what? Today is a feast day of St. Joan of Arc, the saint that I selected to be my patron saint when I was confirmed.

St. Joan of Arc is a wonderful example of listening for God's voice.

As a young French girl, she heard voices.

She prayerfully listened, and these voices turned out to be the voices of the saints.

And they were telling her to do something crazy,

to leave her home, to cut off her hair, to wear men's armor,

and to go lead the French army.

At the time, France and England were in something called the 100-year war,

very bloody, very long, and France was losing. And so through God's direction,

Joan of Arc took control of the army. She won incredible victories, and she was incredibly brave.

At one point, she was shot with an arrow in a neck, in the neck, drenched in blood, and still continued to wave

a flag bearing the names of Mary and Jesus and lead her troops to victory. Unfortunately, St.

Joan of Arc did not get the honor that she deserved. People were jealous of her. She was handed over to the English

and was burned at the stake for being a witch. Of course, she was not a witch. And her final words,

history records, were simply repeating the name of Jesus over and over again with great faith. And so my challenge for you all today on

this great feast day and my challenge for myself is to strive to listen more closely to the voice

of God, to find that quiet inner, inner room, in your heart, in your soul, to listen

to what God is telling you, and then to pray that God gives you the fortitude as he gave St. Joan

of Arc to do whatever crazy mission he has set before you. St. Joan of Arc, pray for us.

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