Beyond the books
Listen, watch and history
Not everyone learns best from a page. Here are podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, videos and films worth your time, and the histories that explain how each question came to be asked. Each names the questions it helps with.
To listen to
Podcasts, recorded lectures and free audiobooks: for the commute, the walk, the dishes.
-
Ancient Faith Ministries · many Orthodox podcasts · Orthodox Christian podcasts on prayer, the Fathers, icons and the spiritual life: the Eastern tradition from within.
Helps with: What is salvation for?; The way of prayer; How should we speak of God?; Icons and images; God's essence and His energies
-
Podcast The Catechism in a YearFr. Mike Schmitz, 2023 · 365 episodes, about 15 minutes each · The Catechism of the Catholic Church read aloud and explained, a few paragraphs a day.
Helps with: What do the sacraments do?; What is conscience?; Is morality objective and knowable?; Who can be saved?; Who interprets revelation?
-
Podcast The History of ByzantiumRobin Pierson · hundreds of episodes · The Eastern Roman Empire from 476 to 1453, episode by episode: the councils, iconoclasm and the long road to the schism.
Helps with: Icons and images; The procession of the Holy Spirit; The office of Peter; What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?; Church and state
-
Thomas à Kempis · about 7 hours · Free volunteer recordings at LibriVox of the most-read Christian book after the Bible.
Helps with: The way of prayer; Contemplation or action?
-
Thomas V. Mirus · long-form interviews · Interviews on Catholic art, music, literature and liturgy: what a culture formed by the faith looks like.
Helps with: Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?; Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?; Liturgical development