The hours of the day with young children can fly by in a flurry of activity with a keen sense of adventure. And then there are the days when the afternoons drag. Afflicted with illness and foul weather, there are only so many activities a family can manage with a cheerful disposition. Yes, making dozens of crepes is fun and educational, but the mess is unspeakable.
Enter: podcasts. They are no longer just for adults. Of course, a discerning treatment of the content is required, but there are great goods to be gained through the recordings now available in podcasts for children.
For Catholics, or anyone who can tolerate the eccentricities of Catholicism, there is much to be enjoyed in the genre of hagiography. Multiple podcasts now offer a growing archive of stories of saints’ lives. They are magnificent. While so much of our post-modern storytelling is spent explaining the sundry reasons for disorder and vice, the lives of the saints illumine how and why people act in self-sacrificing love.
The saints can seem as different from each other as they are from us, so marked are their different personalities and challenges. Yet, there is a striving in all the stories to become united to God, who is love and mercy itself. If you are going to spend time listening to stories with your children on the occasions when no one can muster the attention to read aloud in-person, one could certainly do worse than to spend time with the saints.
Here are couple of podcasts to get you started:
Saints Stories for Kids
This production of Shining Light Dolls is hosted by Chantal Baros. A cradle Catholic, Baros is the artist behind the line of saint dolls now frequently and lovingly bestowed by godparents on their chubby-fisted godchildren.
The podcast offers brief (often around seven or eight minute) episodes exploring the life of one saint at a time. Baros provides an overview of a saint, ranging from ancient times up to the present day, and then offers a dramatized narrative of an event in the saint’s life. Pithy and thought-provoking, the stories offer an introduction to so many saints you might not know about.
Likely inspired by current popular names, Baros includes episodes on saints not often included in older books of saints for children, such as St. Adelaide.
What the podcast lacks in depth it makes up for in interesting details and the breadth of saints included in the archive.
Saints Alive
Likely a good fit for school-aged children, and possibly too intensely dramatic for some preschoolers, Saints Alive is a long-form radio-drama style production. The work of Alex and Melissa Dee, along with Tanner Kalina, the imaginative stories take place in one or two parts, each part running 30 or 40 minutes. The longer content, again likely appropriate for older children and hard to handle for some sensitive kiddos, offers a rich examination of individual lives or apparitions. Featuring trained actors, many of the productions are of impressive thematic quality. The earliest episodes are a bit campy (particularly St. Nicholas), but many episodes offer rich musical accompaniment and sound effects that impress.
As the creators state in their introduction to each episode, “The saints were just ordinary boys and girls who allowed God’s love to transform them into real-life superheroes. Their love for God changed our world. Did you know that God has sent you here to become a saint? It’s up to you to choose love over fear, to be courageous, faithful, and kind. The choice to become a saint won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Listen closely and open your hearts. These real-life tales of the saints from the past may just inspire you how to live your story.” What better inspiration for virtue could there be?
Stories of the saints when told well are dramas of the human heart. There is no predetermined elect for whom life is easy. In the challenges of other people’s lives, we can learn how to meet the demands of our own lives in pursuit of ideals and union with the God of love who made us. Chekhov wrote in his time that “inspired souls are as necessary as the sun. These personalities are living evidence that in society there are still people of a higher order, people of heroic deeds, faith, and clearly defined objectives.”
How true that is today when we need encouragement that our lives have meaning and virtue is a worthy goal. Listen to the lives of the saints for continual refreshment on the journey.
