Electric Prayer

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Welcome to February!

This newsletter covers the Word on Fire conference, Universalis on social media, and the latest podcast episodes.

Word on Fire London conference

Bishop Robert Barron’s organisation “Word on Fire” is large and well established in the USA, but it is also growing in England. This Friday and Saturday, 21-22 February, Word on Fire UK is holding a conference called Evangelisation & Culture: The Bible in London. Here is the description:

To proclaim Christ in the culture, we must know Christ; and to know Christ, we must know Scripture. As St. Jerome observed, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” But in order to uncover the spiritual and theological meaning of the Bible, we need to take a genuinely Catholic approach: reading it within the context of the great and beautiful chorus of voices from across the centuries of the Church’s tradition. Join us in London this February for our first-ever conference on the Bible.

The reason I am mentioning this in the Universalis newsletter is that I have been invited to speak in the conference on the Saturday morning, at a session entitled The Word of God, Alive and Active. I will be talking about Universalis – how and why it began, how it has grown, and the impact it has had.

After the session I will be at Hodder & Stoughton’s stand, signing copies of my book The Creed in Slow Motion.

Almost 2,000 people are expected to be attending the conference. If you are among them, come and say hallo. It is such a virtual activity, creating electronic media, that it will be refreshing for us to meet one another and discover that we all have arms and legs and lungs!

The spoken Hours

The conference organisers tell me that Bishop Barron listens regularly to the spoken Hours on Universalis. Let me pass that message on, in case some of you are on the point of subscribing but haven’t quite got round to it. Here is the link which tells you how to subscribe.

Social media

I thought it would be useful to summarise where you can find Universalis in the social media you use.

Twitter/X: An automatic post is made every evening (GMT) telling you what the next day’s feast is. You are welcome to follow or quote. In addition, you find a “Tweet” button in each of the web pages for the Mass and the Hours, and also in the iPhone/iPad and Android apps, which you can use to tell your followers that you have read the Mass readings or done one of the Hours.

Instagram: Every day we post pictures and stories here. Our followers on Instagram are a friendly and responsive community. Why not follow, and join them?

Facebook: You get the same posts as Instagram does, plus others from time to time. Feel free to quote, or share.

Recent podcasts

It is nearly the anniversary of the start of the Universalis podcast! It continues because it is making a difference to so many people’s lives.

The Universalis apps and programs will remind you when a new episode comes out. Otherwise, here is the Podcasts page. Or just go to the home page at universalis.com and you’ll find a Podcasts button at the top right.

Here are the episodes which have come out since the last newsletter. Each is around 17 minutes long, and you can listen to it by clicking on the link.

12 January: The Baptism of the Lord. Baptism. The uncanonised Henry Edward Manning.

19 January: The wedding-feast at Cana. Joy, pleasure and delight.

26 January: Sunday of the Word of God. Reading; listening; commentaries. Lectio Divina. Saint Thomas Aquinas.

2 February: Candlemas, the feast of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of the Lord. Purification. The celebration and sanctification of transitions.

9 February: Saint Scholastica; the Shipwreck of St Paul; Our Lady of Lourdes; Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the Basilica of San Clemente.

16 February: The Book of Proverbs. Wisdom literature in general. “The Creed in Slow Motion” and next weekend’s Word on Fire conference.

The next podcast is due out on Friday or Saturday.

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.