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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is November 11th, 2020. Today is also the feast day of St. Martin of Tours.

Now, this week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are talking about the call to discipleship. Shortly after Jesus was baptized,

he called to specific people to leave everything and to follow him. He called to Peter,

Andrew, James, and John, but he also called to people that did not actually physically leave their homes and follow him, but yet became his disciples,

people like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Now, yesterday we looked at the great example of Pope St. Leo the Great, and how as a disciple,

we are called first to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and only then can we do his great work,

like proclaim the truth or do mighty deeds on his behalf.

Now, today is the feast day of St. Martin of Tours.

St. Martin of Tours gives us an example of this really hard calling that we oftentimes receive

as a disciple, and that is to leave everything and follow Jesus.

Now, St. Martin of Tours lived a long time ago. He lived in the 300s, and at the time he was raised in Italy. His father was a pagan

and was a member of the Emperor's Army. And military prestige was a big part of their family culture.

It was expected the St. Martin of Tours would become a soldier and would distinguish himself on the battlefield.

So that's what he was planning to do.

But something crazy happened.

Now, this happened a long time ago, so it's kind of folklore, but it's still a beautiful

power, powerful story of how St. Martin of Tours was converted and received this calling from Jesus

Christ to leave everything behind and follow him. So St. Martin Tours was with his a couple of friends

who were also in the Roman army. They were on horses riding through Rome and it was a bitter cold winter day.

Luckily, though, they had their armors and their big thick capes and they were laughing as they

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