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

Hey there, Sprouds.

Today is Wednesday, September 30th, 2020.

Today is also the feast day of St. Jerome.

Now, it's very interesting that we are celebrating St. Jerome's feast day on a week when we're talking about Bethlehem. And if you listen to his little story, you'll realize why.

So Jerome was from the city of Rome, and he lived there while Christians were still being persecuted when it was still illegal to be a Christian.

He lived at the end of 300th in the beginning of the 400s.

Jerome was crazy smart.

He spoke all sorts of different languages, and he used this knowledge for the faith.

In fact, he wrote the first Latin translation of the Bible.

Now, Latin might sound pretty fancy now, but Latin was the language that most people spoke

and read.

So he took Greek and Hebrew, and he wrote the Bible so that many people could access the

word of God.

St. Jerome was also one of the crankiest saints that we have.

He did not tolerate people not really living out the true call of Jesus Christ and he oftentimes would criticize. He, however, was very devout. He left Rome and he went through the Holy Lands.

He lived for five years in the desert, fasting and praying.

Eventually, he moved into Bethlehem.

And he lived the end of his life in the very cave in Bethlehem where Jesus Christ had been born.

And he died there.

He lived there.

That's pretty interesting, isn't it?

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