You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for January 6th, 2020. This week on the Catholic Spouts

podcast, we are getting back into the swing of things after celebrating a beautiful Christmas,

and we are kicking off a new series here on Catholic

Sprouts that will explore all of the seven sacraments in a way that I hope is easy to understand,

but even more than that, exciting because the sacraments are awesome.

Before we do that, though, let's look back on all the amazing things that we have

had the honor of celebrating in the last couple weeks. So, to review, way back on December 25th,

we had Christmas, of course, the next day, December 26th, was the feast day of St. Stephen. St. Stephen has the honor of being the first

martyr of our church, meaning he was the first follower of Jesus to be killed because he followed

Jesus. Now, that might seem strange that we have the very day after Christmas, the day where we're

celebrating the first person to die for Jesus.

But it reminds us of just how amazing the gift we received on Christmas is.

The gift of Jesus, born as a tiny baby, and what he came to do on earth is so amazing that it's worth dying for.

Now, the next day, December 27th, was the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, also known as the beloved disciple.

The next day, December 28th, we celebrated the feast day of the Holy

Innocence. Now, the Feast Day of the Holy Innocence, it celebrates all of those little

babies in Bethlehem that died because Herod was so afraid of the new Savior's birth. Remember, when the kings did not return to Herod, Herod ordered

that all little boys in the city of Bethlehem be killed in hopes that he would eliminate the

Messiah that had been born. Thankfully, Joseph listened to the dream that he received, and of course, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

escaped through Egypt. But we honor all those little babies that lost their lives. They, in a way,

are also early martyrs who died so that Jesus Christ might come into the world and save us all for our sins.

Now, a few days later, on December 31st, the very last day of the year, was the feast day of

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