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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, April 1st, 2019. This week on the Catholic Sprouts

podcast, we are going to continue to look closely at Jesus Christ as we move through Lent.

Last week, we discussed the miracles in the gospel. This week, we are going to look at the parables.

Now, in case you don't know, Jesus oftentimes taught the crowds and his disciples with parables.

Now, parables are short little stories, and they are storytelling in the Jewish tradition.

They're a little bit strange for us to understand, but they would have been a very natural way

to teach and learn for the Jewish people who were Jesus' disciples and followers while he was on earth. So let's talk about what a parable is

and why Jesus used them to teach. So like I said, a parable is the Jewish style of storytelling.

Usually they use images or types of people that we find in ordinary life.

Jesus talks about things like shepherds and planting seeds and servants or people that get

injured or a father and a son, all things that we understand and interact with all the time. So he uses common things, but oftentimes

in a parable there is something strange, something that just is not ordinary and makes us really

wonder what is going on. The other thing that might seem strange about a

parable is that there usually isn't a clear moral or lesson. Oftentimes in the storytelling

we're used to, we're used to a strong moral at the end. A story might end and we hear something

like, and this is why we don't steal.

Now, that's good, but that's not how a parable is told.

In fact, oftentimes, a parable leads to more questions than answers.

In fact, a parable is meant to help us think more deeply about something.

It encourages us to question and grow in our belief through those questions. Finally, the parable that Jesus told oftentimes reveals something about

God the Father and his expectations and relationships with us.

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