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

Hey there, Sprouts.

Today is Tuesday, October 5th, 2019.

It is also the feast day of St. Elizabeth, who was, of course, the mother of St. John the Baptist, who was the cousin of Jesus.

This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are talking about fortitude, which is the next

gift of the Holy Spirit.

And it is that next rung that we use as we climb this ladder to holiness.

Yesterday we talked about how fortitude means strength. It is what gives us the endurance or the

perseverance to climb this deep ladder to heaven. Now today we are going to talk about

confidence. Confidence is a key part of fortitude. Imagine a weightlifter. A weightlifter needs to

first believe that they can lift up this outrageously heavy thing. They need to believe that they

can do it before they even put their hands on the

bar and begin. They believe they can do it. And it is that belief that allows them to do it,

allows them to pick it up, to push through, even when it hurts, and to lift up this incredibly

heavy weight.

Now, athletics, we get confidence by previously having done it or knowing our own abilities,

but the type of confidence that we are talking about today goes way beyond that.

Just as the gift of fortitude from the Holy Spirit goes way beyond simply being strong or being tough.

We are talking about something that is a divine gift.

So where does this outrageous confidence come from?

And when I say outrageous confidence, I mean the confidence of the crazy followers of

Jesus Christ. People that were willing to risk their lives or even lose their lives,

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