Electric Prayer

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

Happy Easter! He is truly risen, alleluia.

If you look at the Lauds and Vespers pages this week, you will find that the psalms are the same every day. That is not a bug. The Church is drunk on the Resurrection and can’t stop celebrating it. Let’s let ourselves go, after the self-control of Lent, and do the same!

The Alleluia button

A couple of years ago, hundreds of people who use Universalis recorded the one word “Alleluia” to share with everyone else. Throughout Eastertide, you can listen to “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!” in their voices. The oldest voice is 92; the youngest sounds about 2.

You will find the Easter Alleluia button in any of the Hours pages in the iPhone/iPad and Android. If you think the button is a distraction then you can turn it off. If you can’t see the button but are insterested, you can turn it on again. This blog post tells you everything you need to know.

The Universalis podcast

The last newsletter announced a new service: a weekly podcast about the liturgy for the coming week. Thousands of you are listening to it, which is humbling and exhilarating, both at the same time. Thank you also to the kind people who wrote in saying how much they appreciated it.

The episodes are between 10 and 15 minutes long.

• You can get to the podcast directly from the About Today page in the Universalis apps and programs.
• You can go to this page and listen to the latest podcast and all the earlier ones.
• If you are a regular podcast listener and use an app such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify to follow and listen to podcasts, you can follow the Universalis podcast in the same way. The instructions are here.

Reading and Reflection: a new e-book

In the Universalis apps and programs it is possible to view, next to the day’s readings at Mass, commentaries on those readings by Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB of Ampleforth Abbey. Dom Henry is the editor of the New Jerusalem Bible and the Revised New Jerusalem Bible and a noted biblical scholar. One can turn the commentaries on and off in the Settings screen.

Some people find the commentaries a great help, so in October we brought out a new e-book called Reading and Reflection. That was the Jerusalem Bible edition. Now we are delighted to announce that a New American Bible edition has been published, for readers in the United States.

Reading and Reflection contains all the Mass readings for every day of every year, with Dom Henry’s commentary on every one. You can use it to look at today’s readings, or to browse through them day after day. There is an index as well, so you can easily find all the places where (for example) the prophet Amos is read. There is even a calendar at the back for the years 2023 to 2034.

Follow these links to read about these e-books in detail and to download and read free samples:

Reading and Reflection (Jerusalem Bible Edition) came out in October. For copyright reasons it is available throughout the world except for the USA, Canada and the Philippines. Despite that limitation, more than a thousand people bought the book. Thank you all for your interest!

Reading and Reflection (New American Bible Edition) has just been published. It is available in the USA only.

We apologize to readers in Canada and the Philippines. International copyright is a nightmare, and we are doing what we can.

Thank you all for using Universalis. If you have trouble or questions, or suggestions, do write to us at universalis@universalis.com or use the Contact Us button in one of the apps.

Let us all keep one another in our prayers, as always.