You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast. Today is also part of the first week of Advent. So happy Advent. And it is also the feast day of St. Andrew, who is one of the close disciples apostles

that followed Jesus while he was alive, the brother of Simon Peter, and a great martyr

for the faith.

Now, this week on Catholic sprouts, we are going to be talking about some incredible

black Catholics, meaning people with dark skin who loved Jesus, loved the church,

did incredible things as Catholics, and have also been officially recognized by our church

as holy, venerable, and worthy of carrying our prayers to heaven where Jesus Christ is with them in heaven.

Now, before we get into this, I want to talk to you about a couple of things.

First of all, we are doing this content because I think it is a terrible thing. If any child should grow up and think

that there isn't a saint in heaven that looks like them, whether it's the color of their

skin, their height, disability, whatever it is, please, my friends, rest assured that no matter what you physically

look like on the outside, God is indeed calling you to be a saint. And not only that,

that he has called other people that look like you to be saints as well,

and many of them have responded with a bold yes to his call.

Now, there are many people that we know officially are in heaven.

They have worked miracles through their intercession after their death.

They have been officially named a saint of the Catholic Church.

But there are many others in heaven that we don't know about. So the other thing I want to talk to you

about are the steps to sainthood. There are various names that we give to people as we are

evaluating and researching their lives to see if they are indeed a saint.

So the first step in this process is to be named a servant of God.

Now, this is the easiest title to be given, but simply after a person dies, if a group really feels strongly that they lived a good

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