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

Hey there, Spouse. Today is Thursday, December 31st, 2020. It is also the very last day of 2020.

Sprouse, this week we have been talking about the family. We have been reminding ourselves how important the family is, that the family is the building block of society. The family is really the little

church, as Pope St. John Paul II described it. And it is in the family that we are able to discern and

accept the specific mission that God has created just for us. And we have been exploring this

through some Old Testament families. First, we looked at the story of Abraham and Isaac,

the dramatic story where Abraham almost

sacrificed his son, and how that serves as a reminder that we belong to God. Our parents have

been entrusted with our care, but our first and most important obligation is to God.

Next, we looked at the story of Moses, who was taken from his family when he was just a baby,

but how nothing can ever remove us from our families, how Moses remained part of his

Israelite family, and how God can use all things for his glory.

Now, today we're going to look at another family from the Old Testament, and this is the family

of Samuel.

So Samuel was one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament.

He went on to be the prophet that gave Israelite their first kings,

and he is the one that anointed the greatest king of all, King David. But not only that,

during the Old Testament, the prophets weren't just priests that sat around in the temple all day. Samuel also

led armies in battle to great victories. He was very involved with the Israelite nation. But let's go

back to before he was born. So Samuel's mother's name was Hannah. Unfortunately, Hannah was unable to have children.

So every year when they would go to this temple to worship God, they were Israelites, she would beg

God for a baby. Beg him. Beg him, beg him. After years of this and years of quite a lot of sadness,

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