There's an App for That
by Melissa Wiley in Reviews on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 6:00 AM
When I got my iPod Touch, I thought of it as a sort of guilty pleasure: one more way to keep up with email and blogs, and perhaps a way to listen to audiobooks. I had no idea it would transform my prayer life.
Then, while wandering the wonderland that is Apple’s App Store — a virtual warehouse full of applications custom-made for the iPhone and iPod Touch—I encountered Universalis, which installs the Liturgy of the Hours on your device. I had heard about the Universalis website, but at the time I had little understanding of what “praying the Divine Office” meant, and I couldn’t imagine myself keeping up with all those psalms and prayers, several times a day.
But one day I decided that the Universalis app would be a worthwhile investment — at $24.99, it is cheaper than a year’s subscription to Magnificat — and I took the plunge. Now, over a year later, I find myself reaching eagerly for my Touch every three hours throughout the day. The Universalis app made praying the Liturgy of the Hours easy—no pages to flip, no ribbons to place. Suddenly I was able to understand how the Divine Office is structured, and with that understanding came an increasing desire to immerse myself in those prayers.
The App Store offers a number of applications of interest to Catholics. Here are my favorites:
iBreviary. Like Universalis, this app brings the Divine Office to your iPod Touch. Both apps have an easy user interface and clean, attractive layout. The chief difference between them is that Universalis downloads the entire Liturgy of the Hours to your device so that you can pray the Office anywhere, anytime, no WiFi connection needed. iBreviary only downloads the current day, so you must refresh the page every morning; that means you’ll need WiFi access at least once a day.
This accounts for the price difference between them: iBreviary costs a mere 99 cents.
— iBreviary Tip: When you first purchase it, its default setting is Italian. To switch to English, you must exit the app and go to your iPod’s settings. If you scroll down in the Settings list, you’ll see iBreviary among your applications. You can change default language settings from there.
If you would prefer an audio version of the Hours, DivineOffice.org offers its popular daily podcasts via a $9.99 app: “Designed to be very simple to use, this audio version of the Liturgy of the Hours includes scripture readings, psalms and prayers for several times (hours) of each day.”
More great iPod Touch apps for Catholics:
iRosary. I admit that I prefer the feeling of real beads clicking through my fingers. But on a practical level, I have to confess that I find the Rosary easier to pray with this inexpensive app. The format is clever; you slide your finger to “tug” the next bead into place as you pray each prayer. There is nice artwork for each mystery and you can customize the appearance of the rosary by changing beads, chain, and cross. The customary set of mysteries for each day, in every season of the liturgical year, is highlighted on the home page, although you may choose to pray any set of mysteries you wish. Best of all, the app remembers where you left off if you’re interrupted in the middle of a decade. I like to keep my Touch under my pillow, and if I am awake in the night, nursing the baby, I can pray in the dark with iRosary’s beads shining on my little screen.
— iRosary Tip: the free “lite” version offers a scaled-down version of the 2.99 app — no artwork, and instead of full text for the prayers, only the names appear.
Liber Pro. For $14.99 you can download 1961 Liber Usualis, “a book of over 2,300 pages of Gregorian Chant for use throughout the liturgical year.” I don’t own this one so can’t speak to the details, but the website says, “Liber Pro adds to this tome a linked table of contents, user-defined bookmarks, vertical and horizontal paging and zooming, browser-like navigation, a dynamic liturgical calendar, and more.” Lovers of Gregorian Chant may find this app far easier to navigate — and carry — than the book version.
iPieta. What a treasure trove! This may be the best $2.99 you’ll ever spend. iPieta transforms your iPod into a prayer book. In one download, you’ll receive the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Summa Theologica, St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, a Catholic calendar with Mass readings (both Novus Ordo and Tridentine versions), the Baltimore Catechism, the Imitation of Christ, St. Francis de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout Life, dozens of traditional Catholic prayers, and more. So much more. (Complete list of content here.)
Basically you get a gigantic library of Catholic treasures for the cost of a fancy cup of coffee, squeezed into a device the size of a playing card. I bet St. Maximilian Kolbe, who championed the use of technology to spread the faith, is cheering from heaven over this one.
One Last Touch Tip: My teenaged daughter, who was given her own iPod Touch by some very kind grandparents, set her Alarm Clock app to chime the “Belltower” tone at noon every day. This is our signal to stop whatever we’re doing and pray the Angelus together. For years and years I have been trying to cultivate this devotion, and now, finally, thanks to the Touch, the habit has taken root. Deo Gratias!
—Melissa Wiley is a homeschooling mother of six and the author of Little House in the Highlands, Across the Puddingstone Dam, and other novels for children. She blogs about family life, children’s literature, and her trusty iPod Touch at Here in the Bonny Glen.
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