We’ve received the first reviews (via email) of the free audio books of the Fathers offered by Maria Lectrix. Everyone’s very happy with the experience. A surgeon tells us he listens to the MP3 files on his commute to and from work each day: “I’ve listened to all of St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letters. Wow!” He goes on to marvel at how utterly familiar he found the Church of 105 A.D., with its bishops and priests and deacons, its care for the poor, and its love of the liturgy. Doc’s experience might be more authentic than those of us who’ve read Ignatius’s words on the page. The letters were written, after all, to be read aloud in the assembly, like the Book of Revelation and so much of St. Paul. Faith comes by hearing, and it’s a delightful experience. (As long as he doesn’t wear his iPod in the O.R.)
4 thoughts on “‘Lectrifying MP3s: The Reviews Are In”
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This makes me very happy.
But what’s really amazing is how clearly the Fathers (and pretty much all Latin and Greek literature I’ve heard read) speak to me when I hear them instead of reading them. I always liked classical lit, but now I’m really starting to love it.
And it’s the same for a lot of medieval, Renaissance, and even Victorian literature as well. (There’s an awesome unfinished Chaucer Troilus and Cressida on archive.org, for instance. Chanted in good Middle English, at that.) We forget that in the old days, a lot of people liked to read to each other, and poetry in particular was almost always composed to be read out loud.
Ah, life before the Gutenberg Galaxy. McLuhan makes these points again and again, especially in the essays collected in The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion (selected and edited by his son Eric McLuhan). This has profound implications for our reading of the Fathers, but also and perhaps especially for our experience of liturgy.
A nice couple, the Rennies, put together podcasts/mp3s of the Dialogue with Trypho on my site. The links are here. He’s Justin and she gets to be everyone else. Fun!
Thanks, Kevin. I’ll post notice on the blog proper.