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

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Friday, September 14th, 2018, and we have a great feast day

tomorrow on Saturday, which is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Now, this week on the Catholic

Spouts podcast, we have been talking about suffering.

We talked about how sometimes God, who is infinite love, allows bad things to happen and for us

to suffer. We also talked about what we should do when we are in a moment of suffering.

Then we took a lesson from the early church

and learned that even amid suffering, there is reason to be joyful and to remember that we are not

made for this world, we're made for the next world. Yesterday, we looked at the suffering of Jesus Christ

and how His cross really did triumph over everything.

And therefore, we too are called to suffering that can triumph as well.

Today, since tomorrow is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Today we are going to be looking at Mary.

Now, we know from what we talked about a few weeks ago that Mary was assumed body and soul

into heaven and that she now reigns as queen of heaven and earth. But we also know that Mary

has not just been sitting around up there.

She regularly comes to earth in apparitions to help us learn how to become more holy and come closer to Jesus.

Just over 100 years ago, Mary appeared in Fatima, Portugal, to three small children. The children were poor,

and they were out in the fields taking care of their sheep. Mary appeared to them several months

in a row, and she gave them some important messages for all Christians. One of her messages

to them was about suffering.

Mary said to the children, she said,

Are you willing to offer yourselves to God

...