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Day 35 of 40 Days of Catholic Media: Maria Lectrix
By Sean | March 11, 2008
I’d been meaning to write about Maria Lectrix some time during these 40 days, and this seemed like a good time. Since September 2005 (which pre-dates Librivox, Maureen O’ Brien has been doing a daily podcast of readings of public domain literature. Her tastes are very catholic (note the lower-case c) in that they are broad and wide-ranging. She usually has several serial books going on at the same time and divides the week up according to genres.
From About Maria Lectrix
Mondays, I do whatever kind of literature comes into my head: short stories, poems, essays, history, even plays. Tuesdays are currently dedicated to fantasy. Thursdays are for mysteries, and Fridays are for science fiction.
Wednesdays are for reading the Fathers of the Church and other Early Christian literature. (As members of a diverse and advanced civilization that is often hostile to their religion, their problems are very similar to ours.) Saturdays are for the works of later Christians.
In general, the idea behind this podcast is that I catch up on my reading while sharing it with others. There are a lot of things that just work better read out loud; there are others that could go either way. Sometimes my choices may prove less than felicitous, since I’m often reading works for the first time. But I will try to keep things from getting boring.
As seen above, Maria Lectrix also has recorded a great deal of early Catholic literature (note the upper case C). Next week for Holy Week she will be reading, The Seven Words on the Cross by St. Robert Bellarmine. Thanks Maureen. This would be an excellent way for Catholics to reflect on the meanings and mysteries of Holy Week and the Death and Resurrection of Christ.
If you enjoy audiobooks, I definitely recommend that you check out Maria Lectrix.
BTW: As a long time sci-fi fan, I really enjoyed Maureen’s reading of H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy.
Topics: 40 Days, Catholic Blogs, Catholic Podcasts, spotlight on catholic media | 2 Comments »
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March 13th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Thank you for the kind mention! This is a very good series of postings, btw.
Actually, the Librivox project started in August 2005, and I think Hugh McGuire was floating it before that. I just had completed stuff before they did, because I was doing a little disorganized contribution of sound files to the Internet Archive before that — and because one person can move quicker than a pack. (Doesn’t build up nearly as much momentum, though!) A lot of people had started having grand podcast ideas before that time, and so I was rather a latecomer to literary podcasting.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] been doing a great series this Lent, uncovering and commenting on various Catholic media. He did a post on Maria Lectrix on the 11th! So go forth and check it out, along with all the other days. (Sorry I didn’t note it before. [...]