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

Hey there, Sprouts.

Today is Thursday, April 30th, 2020.

This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are doing a tribute to health care workers.

Thank you, thank you for all that you have done to get us through this pandemic.

So far we have talked about some great heroes that worked in health care and have become saints.

We've talked about St. Martin de Pores, who passed through locked doors to care for patients in quarantine.

We've talked about Dr. Giuseppe Muscate, who cared for the hopeless cases,

but never lost hope. And yesterday we talked about St. Catherine of Siena and her amazing life, but also how she cared for patients dying from the Black Plague. Now today we are going to

talk about another wonderful saint. His name is St. John of God.

Now, St. John of God lived a very interesting life. The first half of his life, he really didn't

care too much about God. He was a soldier. He was a traveler, and he never really thought much about

God. Sure, maybe he went to Mass once in a while, and he never really thought much about God.

Sure, maybe he went to Mass once in a while, but it didn't make a big impact on who he was.

However, when he was 40 years old, he was at Mass, and he heard a sermon that just transformed him

that made him realize instantly that he needed to be living for more than just

himself. That his life was a gift and he needed to give his life in service of others. So he was

completely transformed. He didn't exactly know what to do with this transformation.

So he kind of tried a few things and wandered around, but eventually he realized that he was

being called to care for those who were ill and poor and forgotten.

So with the help of a few others, St. John of God, opened a very primitive hospital where he

could do, he did what he could to care for those who were rejected, who were forgotten,

...