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Catholic Sprout

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

Hey there, Sprouts today is Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Today is also the feast day of a great

Italian saint from the 1400s, St. Francis of Paola. St. Francis of Paola was the founder

of an order called the Hermits of St. Francis.

He lived during a time when the church had very poor leadership and because of that corruption

was far too widespread. So St. Francis of Paola took upon himself many penances to pray for church leaders and for the church

in general. He lived a perpetual lent, never ate meat, only slept for a few hours, used a rock

for a pillow. And yet because despite all of these things, he was still very joyful and he was known as a wonder worker.

He was very poor in the model of St. Francis.

He begged for everything.

And so one day he stood at the shores of a big lake and he begged to see captain for passage.

The captain laughed in his face, told him no. So Francis

of Paola spread his cloak out on the water, lifted one end up, became a sail. He stepped on board

and sailed across the lake on his cloak. When he got to the other side, the captain rushed over to him, was astounded, apologized,

and eventually that sea captain left everything behind to follow St. Francis of Piola and become a

hermit himself.

Now this week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are talking about unity, how we as Catholics have a unity not only of worship when we come to Mass. We are unified in what we do, but we also are unified in belief. To have this unity of belief, the church has taught with authority. Each time a heresy or a false teaching has cropped up.

Yesterday we talked about Gnosticism, a heresy from the first and second century.

Today we're going to skip to the next century, the fourth century, and hear about the Aryan heresy.

But before we get there, please join me in praying our April

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