Recent audio additions

The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (DBX0995): The reign of Pope Leo XIII is the fourth-longest of any papacy in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church. Over the course of a full quarter-century, Leo XIII courageously engaged with the modern world, asserting the Church’s authority and wisdom in the face of unprecedented challenges and confusion. He was also a prolific author, issuing a total of eighty-six encyclical letters on matters both spiritual and social. The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII comprises thirty-one of those letters, to present the vibrant and courageous insights of this great shepherd to an age with a pronounced need of hearing and heeding his message.

St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Arc of Conversion by Prof. James Wetzel, Ph.D.(DBX1044): In St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Arc of Conversion, you will join leading Augustine expert and award-winning professor James Wetzel in exploring this timeless work anew. You will come to see how the Confessions is both his most personal and universal work—one that has had incalculable influence in the history of Christianity and Western philosophy. Reading his text closely, you will look at its structures, context, metaphors, themes of conversion, and enduring power to inspire.

Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine by Pope Benedict XVI (DBX7205): This title presents important figures of early Christianity in all their evangelical vitality, spiritual profundity, and uncompromising love of God. Benedict tells the true story of Christianity's against-all-odds triumph in the face of fierce Roman hostility and persecution. He does this by exploring the lives and the ideas of the early Christian writers, pastors, and martyrs, men so important to the spread of Christianity that history remembers them as "the Fathers of the Church". Benedict discusses such great Christian figures as Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian of Carthage, the Cappadocian Fathers, as well as the giants John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine. This book is a wonderful way to get to know the Church Fathers and the tremendous spiritually rich patrimony they have bequeathed to us.

From Augustine to Chesterton and Beyond: Great Spiritual Autobiographies by Michael Higgins, Ph.D. (DBX1037): What would it be like to listen to great figures of our faith discuss their struggles, life lessons, and spiritual insights? A number of remarkable Christians have bequeathed to us their autobiographies. Now, you can access their words and understand the contexts in which they lived with a master scholar and teacher as your guide. In this course, you will explore fourteen inspiring writers who have revealed their spiritual yearnings and encounters with the transcendent. As you do so, you will find new intimacy with each writer, fresh perspectives, and horizons for discovery. Starting with The Confessions of St. Augustine, you will move chronologically through the classics of the Christian tradition and modern spiritual masterpieces.

The Essential Augustine edited by Vernon Bourke (DBX7101):Bourke does a wonderful job summarizing Augustine's theology on a wide range of issues: God, the Trinity, the church, etc. It is organized by topic, with a short introduction to each topic. It draws on a much wider selection of his writings than most people will have read. 

Saints and Sanctity by Walter J. Burghardt, SJ (DBX0600): Explains the significance of the lives of important saints in the lives of the faithful today. Burghardt applies aspects of the saints’ lives to aspects of our lives in illuminating ways, ways that still – many centuries later – resonate. It’s clearly written, easy to understand, but with layers and lots of depth.