Gigabytes of Gospel

Related articles

We’d like to focus, cheerfully and constructively, on

new media and their enormous potential in building relationships

Click on the titles below to read some of the articles at June 2010 issue of the Living City
about the role of digital media in the way we live.

How much do we value a free Internet?	How to use new media for building unity	A producer’s story	The other publishing revolution

Heavenwards. Father Stanislao Esposito entered the digital world in 1994, developing a website to expand on a Bible study group he had formed.

How about using the web to spread the good news? Fr. Stan is way ahead of us

By Rosa Kim

In a time where iPads and Kindles are competing to replace hard-copy books, and greeting cards seem obsolete, replaced by Evites and animated e-cards, how about spirituality?
Sure, we’ve flipped through the TV channels and seen Mass or sermons being televised, but who even needs TV these days when, thanks to YouTube or Hulu, your favorite show or breaking news clips are online, just a click away? Can technology handle the complex, nuanced and very personal world of faith?

Fr. Stanislao Esposito (affectionately known as Fr. Stan) has been well ahead of the game, broadcasting daily reflections and Sunday homilies on his podcast, “The Daily Walk Heavenward,” for several years now. In fact, his podcasts, which are on a break right now, were so popular from the start that listeners from all over the world tuned in to join Fr. Stan on their “walk” toward heaven. Gigabytes of Gospel? There’s much more.

When and how did you get the idea to start these podcasts?
I started working on the web and the new technologies since ... well, since they became available. My first website went up in 1995 when very few people knew of the Internet and websites. My first website did not even have pictures.

The idea of a podcast actually came from a friend of mine who listened to a podcast by a priest. He said, “I bet you can do one too.” I took his challenge and I started by putting the Word of Life on podcasts.

It was early one morning in mid-November of 2005, and I was in my bedroom at the rectory of my parish at the time, Holy Cross in Dover, Delaware. It was probably around 5 a.m. when I recorded that first podcast, because I had a 6 a.m. Mass that day.
I was whispering into the microphone so I would not wake up the other priests.

Do you record your homilies and upload them, or do you dedicate time separately for these podcasts?
The weekday podcasts ran about 10 minutes and were produced and posted on websites Monday through Thursdays. I would read the day’s Gospel, provide a short reflection and offer a prayer at the end. Some days, I would talk about some item of current interest. Other days, I would answer questions from listeners or play some reflective music. The Sunday podcasts were longer, around 30 minutes, and I would tape my homilies live, so that you could hear the people, too ... as well as all the mistakes I made, such as coughing.

How did your diocese feel about your podcasts? Was it generally encouraged? Was there ever any resistance or opposition you faced with regard to the podcast?
My diocese published an article on my activities pretty much the same year I started it. This article was syndicated and appeared all over the U.S. I have also been interviewed by other magazines and radio shows. Again, this was the time when people did not even know what the word podcast meant. I was one of the first priests to use it. Now things are different: a brief search online can give you a choice of hundreds of podcasts by priests.

In terms of difficulties, there were definitely difficulties and time consumption in producing a podcast, mostly in post-production. Sometimes, the iPod didn’t record anything ... so I didn’t have a homily to post. It can also get very costly. My biggest problem was finding a variety of sounds and voices to include variety into the podcast, so that the listener would stay engaged rather than having one voice for the whole podcast ... every podcast.

What is some of your favorite feedback from listeners?
The podcast went up in 2005 and since then it has been impossible for me to find out exactly how many people have listened and subscribed to the feed. The number spiked when the podcast was added to iTunes. The first two weeks it had an increase of 2,000 listeners a week.

I received e-mails from listeners all around the world. The most impressive were from some of the listeners that did not have a Catholic Church nearby. For example, some of the most memorable memos came from parts of Asia, from countries like Sri Lanka, where people hadn’t heard a Catholic homily in a long time and appreciated a homily on the Sunday Gospel. My podcast usually reached the high peaks during the holy seasons of Christmas and Easter. I also had steady followers during Lent.

What are your future hopes and plans for the podcast?
The podcast has been on a pause because I need to rethink the whole thing. I believe it needs to be re-organized and re-designed.

The first step for a healthy, Gospel-based spirituality comes from the hearing of the Gospel; its core is based on the proclamation that God is Love and he is Father of us all. For this reason, I have always been concerned to broadcast this message as broadly as possible. Technology is like a tool. It’s up to us to use it properly. I sometimes ask myself, “What would St. Paul use to preach the Gospel had he been here today?” I am totally sure he would have used web technology. Even the Pope recently suggested that we have to use it, but use it properly.

Fr. Stan, we are excited for whatever you have in store for us next — we can’t wait for the revamped podcast!

You may be interested in the following links:

“The Daily Walk Heavenwards” is available at www.heavenwards.mypodcasts.net.

“The Daily Walk Heavenwards” is also available for iPod and MP3 feeds through iTunes. Click here! Or Podcast Alley Click here!

Share on Facebook. Click here!