PathToHoliness

I hope you had a wonderful Easter as we celebrate the risen Christ. Hopefully you know that the Easter season continues for 50 days! It is a time of celebration and hope.

I’m looking at the last time I posted here and am finding it hard to believe. This year so far we have seen a significant increase in business for our little company. That is a good thing and something that I have prayed a lot about for the last 3+ years. The work we do requires me to do significant travel and I can’t say it excites me any more. I have been in many countries and almost all the states in the USA. And some, many, many times. But if this is what God wants me to do then I will do it with the best of my ability and with joy, not boredom/laziness/anxiety/indecision.

At the same time I am feeling called to put my talents to more use in helping others come to Jesus or have conversions that bring them closer. I want to become a saint and to do that I have to help others do the same. It starts with me, my family and the many people I interact with in my business.

Now, if the technology we have today would be more reliable, simple . . .

I don’t think I ever did a post about the new version of iBreviary which is now iBreviaryPro. It’s another app I use almost every day. I’m finding it harder and harder to carry around and use my Liturgy of the Hours books, especially doing a lot of air travel. These apps are really helping make saying your norms easier.

The Vatican Council for Social Communications has approved an iBreviary application created by Italian priest Fr Paolo Padrini for the iPhone.

Infomobile reports it brings complete missal and principal prayers in Spanish, French, English, Latin and Italian. “That’s cool, but what really sets this application apart from all others in the AppStore is that it’s the first app with approval of the Vatican!” Infomobile says. “As with almost any iPhone app, iBreviary is easy to use, sporting iPhone like user interface. In addition, size of the characters can be increased, landscape mode is supported (using accelerometer) and much more.

Excerpt from CathNews.

After Mass this morning I was talking to a couple and the subject of mobile phones came up. Turns out they had been wondering why I was looking at my iPhone during Mass. As the wife put it, “I was thinking, Can’t he leave that alone during Mass?” It gave me a good chuckle but at the same time made me realize how many people aren’t aware of what new technology can do today. So I used it as a teaching moment and they were amazed.

So, here’s the app that I was using. iMissal by Cantcha, Inc. It has become one of the apps I use frequently since I go to daily Mass. It’s very solid and contains much more than just the daily readings. Here’s a full list:

Here is what is included in iMissal:

Mass Readings: All the Mass Readings for every liturgical cycle (A,B,C,I,II) are included! This includes First Reading, Psalm, Second Reading, Alleluia, and Gospel for all Sunday and Weekday Masses. Reading text is always available for every day, no WIFI connection necessary. Uses translations officially approved for Mass in the U.S. Great resource for Lectors.

Read the rest of this post…

Thanks to Chelsea for the heads up about the new iPhone 4 and especially the Facetime application. Apple has been pretty good about keeping apps out of their store that contain pornographic content. But keep in mind that it does have a full web browser.

Apple has a very cute, family centered ad for its new iPhone, complete with a pregnant woman sharing her baby’s ultrasound image with her husband serving overseas. Click the screen shot above to watch.

Speaking of Apple, check out the Pampers “Hello Baby” iPad app if you haven’t seen it already:

I came across the iPadre iPhone app while looking into the 3rd Annual Catholic New Media Celebration. So let’s make this the next iPhone app to bring to your attention.

First check out iPadre Catholic Podcasting with Fr. Jay Finelli.

Father Jay Finelli is a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence in the state of Rhode Island. He began building web pages in 1995 and started podcasting in September of 2005. This is a great new means of evangelization. Pope John Paul II said that we are in need of a new evangelization. Podcasting is a small part of this new work of evangelization. All of us need to do our part in spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He’s got a blog along with other information on his website. I’ll be subscribing to some of his feeds and will let you know what I think when I get time. Feel free to leave your comment if you’re already a subscriber.

The 3rd Annual Catholic New Media Celebration will be held near Boston, Massachusetts on August 7, 2010.

The Catholic New Media Celebration (CNMC) is an international conference which focuses on evangelization of the Roman Catholic faith using new media. It is a day to Learn, Share, and Explore how New Media can help the Catholic Church in the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II.

* To support and enhance evangelization through the use of New Media
* To provide information and support for New Media Producers
* To foster community among producers and consumers of Catholic New Media

Register here. Look at the program here.

There is a growing number of good Catholic apps for the iPhone and now the iPad. I’ll try to point you to them as I find them. I’ve already done posts on iBreviary, iRosary, Vatican News and the St. Josemaria app.

Today let’s look at iPieta. This is a very comprehensive app with versions for both the iPhone and iPad containing writings on Catholic teaching, Catholic calendar and a long list of prayers. You have to do a little work but you can go to their website and download audio files of many of the prayers, import into your iTunes and then it becomes available in the app so you can play them. They have asimilar but different App in Spanish which is iPieta Español.

CONTENT:

• Bibles: Douay-Rheims, Clementine Vulgate (Catholic and public domain; note that Psalms are numbered slightly differently than some modern Bibles).
• Baltimore Catechisms #1-3; the Cat. of Christian Doctrine, the Roman Catechism, and the Cat. of St. Thomas Aq
• Both the Ordinary (Novus Ordo) and Extraordinary (Tridentine) Calendars with access to the day’s Gospel and Reading(s) from the D-R & Vulgate.
• Numerous devotions including a version of the Little Office of Our Lady, the 33-Day Total Consecration Preparation, Novenas to the Holy Spirit and to the Divine Mercy, St. Alphonsus Stations of the Cross, and the St. Bridget 1-Year and 12-Year Prayers.
• Spiritual writings by St. Louis Marie de Montfort, St. Teresa of Jesus, St. John of the Cross, St. Catherine of Siena, the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Imitation of Christ, Intro to Devout LIfe (St. Francis deS) , St. Jean-Marie Vianney, Treatise on Purgatory (St. Catherine of G), Spiritual Exercises (St. Ignatius), Sinners Guide, Haydock Biblical Commentary, Catena Aurea (St Thomas Aq). The Summa (except for the Supplement) is also in Latin.
• Papal Encyclicals
• Ecumenical Council Documents
• Scriptural passages for the Holy Rosary
• Examination of Conscience
• Saint Notes (incomplete / in progress)
• Bookmarks

There are a number of rosary apps in iTunes for your iPhone. Chelsea pointed me to the iRosary which I downloaded and installed last night. I will use it when I say my rosary today!

Speaking of saying the rosary, did you know that Real Men Pray The Rosary? They do according to a post on the Wall Street Journal. That led me to the RMPTR site. You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Our goal at RMPTR is to do our part to keep the devotion to praying the Rosary alive and well in our time. In a world filled with fast – paced distractions and ubiquitous technology, we would like to encourage people to unplug from time to time, to share in something that doesn’t need electricity or an LCD screen. Just a clear mind for prayer and meditation on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Perhaps even daily?

This site is an invitation to ALL Christian men and women (the Rosary is not just for Catholics!)to experience the peaceful joy of praying the Rosary. We invite you to share in this journey with our Rosary community.

This is cool. I installed it today:

The FREE CatholicTV App provides you with video of this day’s Mass, a daily Rosary from around the nation and the world, a brief reflection to bolster your Faith and news about what’s happening and coming up at Your Catholic Broadband Network.

Get the app at CarryYourFaith.com

Twitter creator and co-founder Jack Dorsey is from St. Louis where he graduated from Bishop DuBourg High School according to an article in the St. Louis Review magazine.

Proud parents Tim and Marcia Dorsey, members of the Cathedral Parish in St. Louis, said they never expected their son would go on to create something as big as Twitter — which unconfirmed news reports currently value at about $1 billion. The Dorseys also have two other sons, Dan and Andrew.

Asked if they credited Jack’s Catholic education (he also attended St. Dominic Savio Grade School in Affton for a short time) to his success, Marcia Dorsey said, “sure, in a lot of ways … he was always involved in speech meets, those type of things were always his cup of tea. And Catholic schools were very good at offering that.”

You can follow the Archdiocese of St. Louis on Twitter here.

I did a little searching in the iTunes Apps Store and found a few more apps you might be interested in.

: $3.99
: $27.99
: $4.99
: $32.99
: $3.99
: Free
(prayers): $0.99
: $0.99

Hey iPhone lovers. There’s an app for the phone (and iPod touch) that you may want to get. It’s the iBreviary. I’ve got it thanks to Chelsea pointing it out to me.

She found out about it on American Papist. You can also read about it on Cath News:

The Vatican Council for Social Communications has approved an iBreviary application created by Italian priest Fr Paolo Padrini for the iPhone.

“That’s cool, but what really sets this application apart from all others in the AppStore is that it’s the first app with approval of the Vatican!” Infomobile says.
“As with almost any iPhone app, iBreviary is easy to use, sporting iPhone like user interface. In addition, size of the characters can be increased, landscape mode is supported (using accelerometer) and much more.