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Catholic app spotlight

Catholic App Spotlight: My Year of Faith

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I have been a bad Twitter user in recent weeks (For those of you on Twitter, I’m @ReadingCatholic and I’d love to connect with you there).

I’ve been on Twitter very rarely lately, even with the excellent TweetDeck desktop. Officially, Twitter can be a time-waster, but when I am there I invariably learn some great things from the links people share.  Lately, I’ve been feeling too “busy” and harried with my to-do list, both online and off, to be able to spend any time on Twitter, or figuring out Pinterest, or any of the other social media goals I have.

But last Friday, I was procrastinating/trying to get my writing juices flowing, in the hopes of finishing a post on Advent books, when I decided to spend a few minutes on Twitter, just checking in and tweeting a few things.  I retweeted some great articles shared, and also an article from the last issue of The Catholic Post about my friend Amy Dyke, the new NFP coordinator.

One of the articles I saw tweeted was “Who Is Your St. Andrew?”  It’s well worth a quick read if you have a minute.

The article was posted on a site called “My Year of Faith,” and in exploring that I discovered that it is actually an App called “My Year of Faith” produced by Little iApps.  I’ve written about Confession, one of the first Apps produced by Little iApps, as well as one of their Novena apps here.   I really do use these Apps to aid in my own prayer life, as well as that of my kids.  I’d have to say that  the Universalis App on my iPhone is my most-used App, but I do use fairly often the various Little iApps that I have.

I’ve just downloaded My Year of Faith (a bargain at 99 cents) so I can’t give a review yet, but I like what I see in the iTunes description and since I have found apps by Little iApps to be useful, well-designed and edifying.

Do you know of any other Apps for The Year of Faith? How are you using your phone or tablet to help you live out the Year of Faith?

The Best Thing About the Behold Conference, Part 2

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Since the blogger help table was in the back of the room, I got the chance to be in the “baby zone.”  There was a mom’s room with a screen streaming the conference events, but that room was packed, and some little ones just needed some time to bounce.  It was fun!
Here’s a photo of all the bloggers.  What a great group of ladies.
Because the back of the room was the baby zone, there was much talk of “baby-stealing.”  Here, blogger Danielle Bean caught in the act with one of the Mosher twins.
 Blogger Hallie Lord meeting two other social media users, who came to Behold specifically because they read about it on her blog.  Next year I want to do a better job of connecting all the people who use social media together during the conference.  Perhaps a sign like, “Tweet Zone”?  Or not.

 

Catholic App Spotlight Update: Confession

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 I first wrote about the Confession App earlier this year, at that time getting a lot of press.  I did download it and check it out, but wondered at the time if I would find myself using the App during actual confession.
Let me “confess” that I’ve become very fond of the Confession App, developed by Little iApps.  So much so, that last month when the App told me it had been two months since my last confession, I felt compelled to share with our parish priest, “While my iPhone says it’s been two months since my last confession, I know I’ve been here twice without my phone.”  He laughed.  And then when I got home I tweeted about doing that.  Am I geeky enough to have a Confession App?  Oh, yes I am.
Many months ago, the very first time I used it in confession, I showed my phone to the priest at a Franciscan parish in Peoria.  Somehow it seemed wrong that he not be aware that I was reading from the examination of conscience the App prompts.  He laughed and said he had heard about it, but it was the first time he heard an App-aided confession to his knowledge. 
Joking aside, I find the Confession App very spiritually helpful in a few key ways:
*the examination of conscience  is keyed to your state in life.  When I first set up my password-protected account, it asked if I were married, etc.  And the examination of conscience relates to that.
*a neat feature that follows the sacramental nature of Confession and what it does for your soul: after you go to confession, your sins, like in actual Confession, are literally wiped away—there’s no way to go back and look through what you confessed previously.  Each time you prepare for confession, the Examination of Conscience is fresh and unchecked.
*the prayer after finishing Confession changes each time you go, and they are lovely.  I wish there were a way to capture them for future reading—I remember particularly good ones from St. Gregory the Great and one from St. Josemaria Escriva, but I can’t find a way to go back and read them again.
I had thought I might use the Confession App for a nightly examination of conscience, but instead, I use my all-time favorite App, Universalis, for saying night prayer.  
Little iApps, the developer of Confession, have a great line-up of Apps.  I’ve downloaded all of them, and especially love the eVotions Apps on different saints.  Our family especially likes the photos on the St. Gianna Molla App.
In recent days, my 8-year-old son and I have taken to saying the novena to Blessed John Paul II in his “App,” as his before-bed prayers, and there’s nothing sweeter than hearing his little voice read through the prayer at the end of the novena. 
Have you used the Confession App?  Or do you have any Catholic Apps you’d like to share?  

Catholic App Spotlight: Sacred Space

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Well, Sacred Space isn’t an App (yet–I can still hope).  It is a unique online prayer resource produced by the Irish Jesuits.   www.sacredspace.ie is the website.  I haven’t seen anything else like it.   It leads the reader through prayer, eventually reading the Gospel of the day, and reflection on it.   The structure of it would definitely lend itself to an App–perhaps the Jesuits will produce one eventually.

I’ve known about Sacred Space for years, but hadn’t visited recently until my husband started placing me in front of the computer to read a particular reflection from the site, I think last week (the beginning reflection changes weekly, from what I gather).  I think it’s his gentle way of inviting me to incorporate more contemplative prayer into my life.  The whole prayer experience with Sacred Space is incredibly soothing, definitely worth a look, and a return visit.  Give it a try!