I'm normally quite liberal with the 'delete' key on unsolicited email requests for endorsements, but I'm going to give this one some play, only because I'm intrigued by the idea.
Ad Fontem: Catholic Texts that Speak to You is offering audio files of sermons and writings of the Fathers:
Each recording is an opportunity to step back into a vibrant exploration of the gospel and it's application to the lives of those listening to the speaker in order to step forward with a new purpose in our lives. One can only imagine the thrill of St Augustine as he listened to St Ambrose preach. We hope to bring this thrill into our recordings and provide a contemporary experience akin to that of St Augustine. May our conversion be the same, too!
The downside is that they cost money; the upside is that it's pennies on the dollar, and easily worth the price. After listening to some samples, they confirm my assumption that one cannot adequately convey the experience of witnessing a live sermon to a guy listening to a cassette tape in his 93 Civic on his morning commute. Much more so when that sermon was preached in Northern Italy in the fifth century A.D. by a preacher who, on a bad day, would have put Jonathan Edwards to shame. The narrator here doesn't come even close to doing justice to St. Ambrose either (not that I have any clue what St. Ambrose sounded like, but one has to wonder if this guy's voice could possibly have inspired the conversion of an Augustine). But, all the same, it's certainly a good idea, and is sure to bear significant fruit.
