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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Wednesday, April 6th, 2020. This week we are talking about the sin of greed, which is when we love or focus on money and possessions too much. We've talked about why it is just unhealthy for us,

but we've also talked about why it is a sin, because when we are greedy, we no longer look to God to provide for us. We give in to worry and we refuse to trust. So today, let's look to the

example of Jesus Christ. What did he say about money and possessions,

about how important they are? And so let's think about this. What example does Jesus give us

on the topic of greed? Well, first of all, think about the parents that he selected to be his parents,

and also the place where he was born. Mary and Joseph were not rich. We know that when they brought

Jesus to the temple, they offered only two pigeons, which is what poor people offered at the temple. We also know that they didn't

have a place to stay when they arrived in Bethlehem, and Jesus was born in a barn. When they left that

area and returned back to Nazareth, We know that Joseph worked hard to support his

family as a carpenter or laborer, and that Jesus joined him in that work. So he purposely did not

join a rich family. He joined a poor family. Jesus also spoke often about blessed are the poor. Blessed are the poor. So Jesus shows us that money and possessions, they don't mean very much to him. And they really shouldn't mean very much to us. The tricky thing is that we, most of us listening today, we live in the world. We need to

have jobs and houses, money to buy food and clothing. We need those things. Religious people,

like priests and monks and sisters, oftentimes they take a vow of poverty.

Sometimes they don't own anything at all. And they live off of donations. And that's wonderful.

It's a beautiful example. But as a mother and father or a child in a family, you haven't been

called to that. So we need money. But we need to be very careful

about how we look at that money, how we use it, the way that we hold on to it. Mary and Joseph also,

they needed money to live. Joseph got paid for what he did or paid for the objects that he made. They used

that money to buy food or animals. So money is something that we need. It's very likely something

that Jesus handled and used himself. We should not reject money or possessions. We just need to be careful about the way that we

use them. Jesus was generous. Jesus thought of other people and he never put his trust in money.

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