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, September 12th, 2018. It is also the feast of St. John Christendom. This week on the Catholic Spouts podcast, we have been talking about suffering. The first day, we talked about why bad things happen. And although we don't

have all of the answers to this question, we do know that God can come into any situation and use

the suffering in that situation for his greater glory. Next, we talked about what we should do when we suffer and how we should resist turning in

on ourselves and instead turn to God and turn to others. Today, we are going to take a lesson from

the early Christians. Now, St. John Christendom lived a long time ago when the church was just starting out.

In fact, he was instrumental in defining some of our most core beliefs as Catholics.

Even before him, though, early Christians lived and practiced their faith, but they lived and practiced

it much differently than we do today.

You see, at the time, most people weren't Christian, and if they found out that you were Christian,

you were often persecuted and even killed in horrible ways.

In Rome, which became sort of the center of the early church,

Christians were persecuted in terrible ways. They were killed by lions in the Coliseum or by gladiators

for sport. It was a horrible time of persecution for the early Christians, and yet they continued to practice

their faith no matter what might happen to them.

What's even more remarkable, maybe, though, is that even amid all of the suffering that

the early Christians endured, they remained joyful.

The story of St. Cecilia, whose feast day is in November,

really shows us how joyful they were. St. Cecilia was an early Christian in Rome. She buried many friends and family members in the catacombs beneath Rome before she finally was sentenced to death.

And what does St. Cecilia do? She's saying the moment before she was meant to be executed.

Through her death, which was prolonged by God, many people came to know and love Jesus and really embrace this joy even amid the worst

suffering. And so why could St. Cecilia, even after the death of so many friends and family

...