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Catholic sprouts

The daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, sprouts. today is Thursday, May 22nd, 2025. Today is also the feast day of St. Rita.

St. Rita lived in the 13 and 1400s. She was a very devout little girl and wanted to be a nun, but her parents had other ideas. They arranged a marriage for her and obedient to her parents. Rita was married.

However, her husband was not a good guy. He was not kind to her. He did all sorts of terrible things,

and yet Rita remained prayerful and faithful. She prayed endlessly for her husband,

and after years of a very difficult life together, he repented. He became a believer, he confessed his sins,

and he became a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. However, because of all of his wicked deeds,

he had many enemies, and shortly after his conversion, he was murdered. Now, Rita also had two sons who were grown men when their

father died, and they were so angry at what happened to their father that they pledged to get revenge. So they

set out to kill the man who had murdered their father. And Rita could not stop them.

The only thing she could do was pray. So she prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed. And before her

sons could go and take revenge, they felt terribly sick, so sick that they could not get out of bed.

And as they lay on their deathbed, they too

repented. They too entered into deep relationship with Jesus Christ. They confessed their sins,

and they died in a state of grace. When her sons had died, she was free to finally become a nun

that she always had wanted to become.

She dedicated her life to prayer, and she oftentimes would spend entire days meditating on the suffering of Jesus, really wanting to share his suffering with him.

So one day, she felt a terrible pain in her forehead, as if she had been cut very deeply.

And she realized that she had received one of Christ's wounds from the crown of thorns.

It was a miraculous wound that bled constantly, that never healed.

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