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

Hey there, Spouts.

Today is Wednesday, August 14th.

Today is also the feast day of one of our saint superstars, St. Maximilian Colby.

St. Maximilian Colby lived in the 1900s in Poland.

When he was a young boy, he was very prayerful and devout, and he had a vision of Mary, where Mary offered him two crowns. One was the pure white crown of sainthood. One was the red crown of martyrdom. She asked St. Maximilian Colby which one he wanted, and he said both. St. Maximilian Colby answered the call to be a Catholic priest. He was a

Franciscan friar. He loved Mary, worked hard to build the militia of the Immaculata, Mary's army. He had a radio

station, a newspaper. He went to Japan as a missionary, all as Mary's servant to lead people to

Jesus through Mary. Unfortunately, he lived during World War II.

He was arrested by Nazis sent to Auschwitz,

and the accounts that we have of him in the concentration camp are incredibly inspiring.

That even though Catholic priests suffered the worst abuse in concentration camps, he never ceased to love.

Even in the hospital, he would insist that other people are cared for first.

He would crawl to the bunks of other people at night to hear confession.

He would say mass in secret so that people could receive the true

bread of life. And at the very end of his life, he volunteered to die a horrific death so that a man

who was a father could live and go home to his wife and children. Just an incredibly inspiring, heroic life in the face of terrible, terrible evil.

So let's all strive to remember the great example of St. Maximilian Colby and strive for both

crowns ourselves, the crown, a pure white crown of sainthood and the red crown of martyrdom.

Now this week on the Catholic Spouts podcast, we are talking about the letter B, which stands for

Bible. We are going to continue this, but please join me today on the Feast of St. Maximilian

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