Ashwin Acharya is a Deacon of our Diocese, currently doing his pastoral year in the Parish of Emerald.  Here he describes a new project he began this year: offering a weekly podcast on the Sunday Readings

Suspended in the Word is a weekly podcast with the intention of bridging the Sunday readings for a pilgrimage Church making its way through the Liturgical Year.

The first episode situates the listener in-between the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and commencement of Ordinary Time in 2021.

This is an exciting and fruitful project for me. At one level, it’s a practical way to do some thorough Sunday homily preparation. It has also helped me gain a sense of the trajectory of the Liturgical story as it unfolds – I’ve become quite intrigued to see what we are reading from and for how long, as this invariably leads to a deeper understanding of what the Church happens to be doing at a given time. Aside from homily prep, though, I think the podcast is a welcome gift for those who would like to enter more deeply into God’s Word and our Catholic intellectual tradition. So the episodes will always begin by looking back on the previous Sunday’s readings and position the listener well for what they will encounter in the Word at the coming Sunday Mass.

Presently, I am taking things week by week, but I would like to continue publishing episodes for the next three years, to complete the Sunday Lectionary for Years A, B (which we are currently in) and C. After that, perhaps shorter weekday reflections would be good. I would also be interested in delving into the Psalms. But all of that can wait. For now, I just need to prepare Episode 10!

Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3qHAVur

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3p88eXp