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

Hey there, Spouse.

Today is Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021.

This week we are talking about the fifth beatitude, which is blessed are the merciful,

for they will receive mercy.

Yesterday we started by talking about what mercy is, and we said that mercy is the combination of love and forgiveness, and that God himself is mercy.

He is the source of all mercy, eternal and endless.

He will never get to the point where he has no more love or forgiveness for you that is impossible. Now, today we're going to talk about specifically

this beatitude, because the beatitude tells us that we will be blessed or happy. If we practice

mercy, that means that someone has offended or sinned against us,

but we respond not with hatred or violence, but we respond like God with mercy.

And if we do that, if we practice mercy in our lives, then the reward is that God will be merciful

with us, with our sins. So let's talk about this. Why does this beatitude tell us there is

such a connection between the way that we treat the people we encounter in our lives and a relationship with God.

Well, simply, Jesus tells us over and over again in the gospel to care for the poor, to care for the weak, to respect our parents, all of these things, every relationship that we are in,

Jesus commands us to be loving and merciful.

And the reason for this is because each person, just like you, each person you encounter,

was also created in the image and likeness of God. Also, each person you

encounter is a dwelling place for Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ asks us to treat the person

in front of us as if they are, in fact, Christ in disguise.

One of my favorite stories from one of the earliest saints comes from St. Martin of Tours.

Now, St. Martin was a soldier in Rome. He served the emperor. But even though he was born into a noble pagan

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