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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Thursday, August 23rd, and it is also the Feast of St. Rose of Lima.

This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we have been talking about our beloved mother in heaven, Mary.

But unlike last week, we've been talking about things that Mary has been busy doing

since she went up into heaven.

First, we talked about why it is okay and even good to pray to Mary.

Then we talked about the rosary, one of the most beautiful prayers that we have as Catholics.

Yesterday we started talking about Marian apparitions. We started by talking about

our lady of Guadalupe and the time that she appeared to the peasant Juan Diego.

Today we're going to talk about something that happened a little bit more recently.

We are going to talk about the time that Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, France.

Just over 150 years ago, a little sick peasant girl was picking firewood near her family's home.

When all of a sudden, she heard a wind and looked up and in a little hole in the rock,

saw a beautiful lady. The lady had a white veil and a blue sash around her waist.

She had a yellow or a golden rose on each foot, and she asked

Bernadette to kneel down and pray the rosary with her. Bernadette agreed. Now, this lady went on to

appear to Bernadette 18 times. It became a little bit of a spectacle after a while, and for a long time

during the appearances, the lady refused to tell Bernadette what her name was. Finally, when

Bernadette begged and was under extreme pressure from the officials in her town, the lady agreed and said that her name was the Immaculate Conception.

She said, I am the Immaculate Conception.

Bernadette was so young and so sick that she hadn't actually been very well formed in her faith,

she reported these words back to her local priest.

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