Podcasts - by elaine

I love listening to podcasts. You can find a wide range of podcasts on my iPod. There are self-improvement ones (like Grammar Girl and Mr. Manners, there are philosophy ones like Fundamental Shift, and there are entertainment ones like the official LOST podcast. But my all-time favourite podcasts are the Catholic ones. And these are the ones that I would like to share with you here. Most of these are part of the StarQuest Production Network (SQPN), a network of Catholic audio and videopodcasts.

The Daily Breakfast is an almost-daily show hosted by Fr. Roderick, an actual priest from the Netherlands. This show covers topics such movies, tv shows, geek news, Catholic answers and a bunch of other random things. This is a light-hearted and entertaining podcast with a Catholic slant. For a priest, Fr Roderick is funny, entertaining and super cute! His behaviour, I mean, not his looks. ;)

The Rosary Army Catholic Podcast is part of the Rosary Army apostolate, run by a married couple from America. Learn how to make an all-twine knotted rosary from the Rosary Army's website. On the podcast, you can listen to Greg and Jennifer talk about their four sons, Catholic stuff, family stuff and some other random things too. I love listening to the two of them banter, or when they talk about family life. These folks also offer audio recordings of the rosary and of the Stations of the Cross.

Another podcast that I love, which is not part of SQPN, is the BustedHalo Cast. As they say in the beginning of each episode, "We have busted halos because nobody's perfect, but we're all on the path toward holiness. So if you're not into the religion thing but you have spiritual questions, you're at the right place with the BustedHalo Cast." This podcast, and its parent e-zine, is targeted at young adults. It offers a very grounded, not airy-fairy, approachable take on Catholicism and religion in general. I highly recommend this podcast as well as the website, which has some really great articles.

Apart from entertaining podcasts, there are also some informative Catholic podcasts that I rely on day in and day out. Verbum Domini gives you audio downloads of the daily readings, according to the liturgical calendar. It's always nice to get listen to a bit of God's word everyday, even if I can't make it to Mass.

The Praystation Portable feed gives me audio downloads of the morning and evening prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office. I listen to these during my morning and evening train rides to and from work. I find these a great way to inject a bit of prayerfulness into the unpleasantness of peak hour commutes.

If you already use iTunes, getting started on podcasts should be quite a breeze for you. For non-iTunes users, you can get a quick how-to guide to getting started on listening to podcasts over here.

I hope you all found these links useful. If there are other great Catholic podcasts, blogs or websites that you love or find useful, do post a comment and share the links. :)