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

Today's podcast is brought to you by OSV Kids. Today's podcast is brought to you by OSV Kids, a magazine designed to help children grow in their faith throughout the liturgical year. To find out more, head to OSVKids.com.

Hey there, Spouts.

Today is Monday, February 15th, 2021.

Well, guess what, Sprouts?

This week, we will be leaving ordinary time,

and we will be entering into the liturgical season of Lent.

Now, Lent might be something that you don't necessarily look forward to.

We know that Lent is full of prayer, silence, hardship, fasting, almsgiving, all these things

that are hard for us. We know they're good for us,

but they're still hard. Well, Sprouts, I am going to offer you something to think about.

Lent is something that the church has given to us in her wisdom, and it is based off of something that Jesus did. Now think back through all of

the stories that you know about Jesus. So at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus' cousin,

John the Baptist, was down by the Jordan River, preaching repentance and offering a baptism

of repentance. So Jesus showed up there.

He was baptized. And of course, God spoke from heaven. This is my beloved son. The Holy Spirit

descended. It was a miraculous, amazing event to behold. God blessing his son and the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.

But do you remember what happens next? Well, Jesus doesn't, you know, crawl out of the

Jordan, dry himself off and start performing miracles and preaching. That will come. But first,

he goes into the desert. And do you remember how long he

goes there for? That's right. He goes there for 40 days. And while he is there, we hear that he

fast, that he prays, and he also deals with the temptations of Satan.

...