Resources – Links and Phone Apps
This is a listing of Catholic spiritual resources, links and phone apps to aid you in your prayer time and reflection.
Our Parish Prayer for the Jubilee of Mercy
Lord Jesus Christ, You have taught us to be merciful like Your heavenly Father, and have told us that whoever sees You sees Him.
Send Your Spirit and bless us so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be an inspiring year of grace.
May Your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,
and restore sight to the blind.
Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy, guide our parish family of Annunciation Catholic Church to rediscover our personal relationship with You, who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God for ever and ever. Amen.
Links
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops – Free Bible Resource
Liturgy of the Hours at Divineoffice.org
Phone Apps
The following is a listing of free Catholic Mobile Apps. We encourage you to visit the links provided to read up on the details of the apps you are interested in before installing them.
Laudate (Free) Apple and Android, Kindle Fire–Laudate touts itself as the #1 free Catholic app. That’s probably because it is the most fully loaded app at this, um, price point. It is hands-down the best value in a Catholic app and certainly worthy of residing on your mobile device given all its many useful Catholic resources. Indeed, most of the hard-core Catholic app users we’ve interviewed have this app on their mobile devices. Available in English, Español, Português, Italiano, Bahasa and Polski, Slovenian and many texts and resources in Latin. You get:
- Daily Mass Readings and Order of Mass for both Ordinary Form and Extraordinary form of the Mass
- Catechism of the Catholic Church- (as well as the Compendium) as a web view display of the Catechism published on the Vatican web site. Internet connection required.
- Liturgy of the Hours- includes text for all the hours for the day. NOTE: The English text is the British version, so it may not match up with texts of others if you are praying in a group.
- Traditional Roman Breviary (1960) with split screen Latin/English.
- New American Bible; NAB Bible when connected to internet only. It also offers Douay-Rheims Bible which is local so you don’t need to be connected to the internet. This makes for a large file, so they recommend moving the app to your phone’s SD card
- Complete library of all the modern era’s Church Documents including all the documents of Vatican II
- Confession app
- Pinch/Zoom capability
- Link to Pope App
- Rosary with a Podcast for Rosary and Stations of the Cross and Latin Rosary
- Chaplet of Divine Mercy (on Rosary screen)
- Stations of the Cross
- Confession (Sacrament of Reconciliation) preparation with examination of conscience
- Various prayers and prayers in Latin with English translation
- A Prayer for Religious Freedom
- Daily Meditations.
- Podcasts of Daily Readings and meditations with ability to bookmark them
- Launcher for iCatholicRadio
- Ability to bookmark prayers and podcasts and create your own categorized prayers. Export/Import for prayers.
Catholic Mega App (Free) iOS and Android Imagine jotting down all the very basic apps and web sites and blogs and podcasts and liturgical books and Catholic apologetics and prayers that you would want on your mobile device. That list might well match the offerings in the appropriately-named Catholic Mega App which bundled all those items and even more into their product. And likeCatholic Apptitude, they concentrated on linking only the very best resources out there for you. So, you don’t just get any old Liturgy of the Hours, for instance, you get the popular iBreviary and DivineOffice.org links. That is considerate, indeed. Let’s open up this free gift and see what’s inside: Order of Mass, daily readings, Breviary, reading reflections, interactive Rosary, Stations of the Cross, the Confession App [the same developer], NABRE Catholic Bible, links to popular Catholic blogs and web sites, pro-life-resources, youth ministry resources, link to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and many prayers. Then it throws in a bunch of interactive social media options like a prayer wall, discussion board, a photo gallery input option, and links to Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest accounts of the Catholic celebrities–Pope Francis, US bishops and EWTN. Whew! And navigation is easily accomplished by holding your phone in one hand and using one thumb (Thumbs up to that!) The downside? Because most all of the resources are linked, you have to be connected to the internet to use most features of this app (other than the note pad). But for the price, this app is well worth the real estate it takes on your mobile device. Go ahead and consider it as the first all-in-one app you download IF your device is constantly connected to the internet.
Catholic Church App (Free) Apple and Android. Brand new to the market is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ all-inclusive The Catholic Church App. As the title suggests, it is an attempt to bundle parishes and (arch)dioceses across the United States—even the Vatican—into one, single mobile resource. You’ll get comprehensive coverage on news of concern to Catholics from the Vatican and Catholic News Service (including CNS videos). This
ambitious app is designed to be of service to every Catholic in the United States–all 75 million of us–with the ability to communicate to us right down to the parish level (although that is a development in progress at this time as, apparently, parishes and dioceses need to pay for subscriptions to hop on to the portal or to link their existing mobile presence for free). Right now, it serves up some useful resources like:
- (coming soon) Church finder by location, city, zip code
- (coming soon) Individual parish and diocesan pages
- Daily Scripture readings
- USCCB content integration
- English/Spanish capability
- News alerts, calls-to-action, events calendar
Pocket Catholic (Free) Android. This is not as elaborate as some of the apps listed above, but for the price, it’s worth a look if you need limited features and want to save memory space. You get:
- a searchable list of common Catholic prayers
- search for Catholic churches near you based on your phone’s current location.
- a handy Note Pad area
- Daily Mass Readings
- listen to the Catholic Radio Station EWTN which you can stream while using other apps
Divine Mercy app (Free) also contains a beautiful Way of the Cross. Available for Android or Apple. The Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, who have promoted the authentic message of Divine Mercy since 1941, offer the OFFICIAL Divine Mercy App. This app covers the entire mystery of Divine Mercy–Origin of the devotion, detailed information on messages surrounding the devotion and much more. Easy to navigate in a beautiful display format, you get:
- Interactive Chaplet of Divine Mercy with an audio option
- Detailed explanation of the three ways to observe the Hour of Great Mercy
- Stations of the Cross, complete with images and the text of St. Faustina’s Way of the Cross
- Images of Divine Mercy
- Explanation of the Feast of Divine Mercy, also known as Divine Mercy Sunday, complete with answers to frequently asked questions
- Novena to Divine Mercy and other popular Divine Mercy prayers…and more!
Touch Rosary (Free) Android As its name implies, this digital rosary displays a full set of beads that glide as you move your finger from one bead to another–an attempt at simulating using real rosary beads. This rosary is impressive for the price given all its many features.
Prayers for each bead are displayed to the side.- Mysteries can be chosen automatically based on the day.
- Each mystery has an image and corresponding bible verse to help your meditation on the mysteries.
- Audio recitation of the prayers and mysteries can be played
- Bead highlight to track your progress.
- Ability to change the font size, background images, locations of the beads
- bead clicking sound and vibration (We appreciate those tactile cues since real beads cannot be felt. These electronic substitutions are helpful.)
- Fifteen Promises of our Lady and how to pray Miraculous 54 Days Rosary Novena.
Rosary Pro (Free) iOS Available in Spanish, English, Italian, French, Catalan, Rosary Pro allows you to pray the rosary in different ways–reading, scrolling through beads or listening. Looking for a rosary that will chime or vibrate in your hand as you advance through the prayers? This one has a rich tactile/audio option so you can pray without looking at your screen. It vibrates when your iPhone is set to silent mode (so you can use it in church or while it is in your pocket). The Our Father beads vibrate and chime differently, so you can tell where you are without peeking at the screen. To make it really custom, this app offers you the ability to record the prayers yourself for playback during the automatic audio rosary. Some of the languages offered come with pre-recorded audio. English does not. So, you can make up your own (or use your children or others to record themselves praying). Its scrolling through beads option is a little odd. Don’t look for virtual beads that advance in some way. This is a text-based visual presentation that counts your swipes on the screen as you advance through the rosary. It is not meant to be a virtual rosary bead experience as other apps offer. Enjoy an assortment of configuration options to choose from including setting a reminder alert to pray at a particular time and the option to include various prayers and other traditional elements people add to their Rosary. Also, you can send a tweet or post to your Facebook account a message when you are going to pray the Rosary.
Thank you to https://catholicapptitude.org for these great phone app links!