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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Wednesday, October 16th, 2019. It is also the feast day of St. Margaret, Mary Aliqui.

Now, this week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are diving into the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We have talked about how fear of the Lord is the first of these gifts, the first step on this ladder to holiness. And we talked about how fear in this case means voiding future evil. Now, we need to dive deeper in this, and we need to

understand why having a fear of the Lord is a good thing. I think sometimes it's easy to get

hung up on that word fear, and it just doesn't feel right when we're talking about a relationship

with God. But it is the correct word and I want you to understand it through this example.

Chances are that if you're listening to me, you are in school in some way. Either you're homeschooled, you go to a regular school, or something else,

but you probably have a teacher in your life. Now, if I ask you, are you afraid of your teacher?

You probably tell me no. I have a great teacher. I know they're not going to hurt me. I trust them.

I love being with them. And that's wonderful. But I would bet, at least in the way that we are

using the word fear in this gift of the Holy Spirit, that you actually do have a little bit of a fear when it comes to this teacher.

Now imagine for a second that you had a teacher that you had no respect for,

that you knew would never punish you or even really care if you didn't follow the rules, if you didn't listen,

if you didn't do your assignments or show up to school at all. Well, how would this affect your

behavior? You probably become really lazy. You wouldn't learn anything. You wouldn't show up,

right? If you knew your teacher didn't care

and there was no consequence, then you wouldn't do what you're supposed to do. Oftentimes

in school, we're asked to do things that we don't necessarily enjoy. Do you enjoy taking spelling tests or memorizing math

facts? Perhaps you do, but there's probably going to be some element that you don't enjoy.

Well, why do you do those things? Do you do those things because you have this great gift to just want to do it, or do you do it because you're

afraid to disappoint your teacher? Or you're afraid that there will be a consequence, an unpleasant,

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