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, November 18th, 2019.

This week on the Catholic Sprouds podcast, we are talking about the sixth gift of the Holy Spirit.

And that gift is understanding. So to review quickly, let's go down to the bottom of the ladder and climb up rung by rung to cover the gifts that we have already talked about.

So step one, fear of the Lord. Step two, piety, meaning prayerful, loving appreciation of God.

Step three, knowledge.

Step four, fortitude or strength when we face temptation or hardship.

The next one, which we talked about last week, step five is counsel,

meaning opening ourselves up to God's guidance for how we use these

gifts of the Holy Spirit. And this week, understanding. Now, as we climb this ladder up to heaven,

you will notice that the gifts of the Holy Spirit become a little bit more complicated each time.

For example, we've already talked about how knowledge is a gift of the

Holy Spirit, knowing things about our faith and knowing if they are true or if they fit into the

overall teaching of the church. Well, what is the difference between knowing and understanding?

Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. There is actually a big

difference between knowing and understanding. In fact, man or human beings, which you are, are

defined by their ability to understand. The ability to understand is what makes you different from your pets.

Your dogs and your cats, sure, they can know all sorts of things. We know things through our senses.

We know that a stove is hot by touching it. We know that the sun is bright by looking outside or that rain is wet

or that it's a long way to walk to school by walking it. We know all of these things through our senses.

But understanding goes deeper. Understanding starts with facts. But when we understand something, we're able to make sense of it,

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