Electric Prayer

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After Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis, Pope Leo is canonising Blessed Peter To Rot this coming Sunday, the 19th. You can read about him in the Universalis pages for his feast day, 7 July. Here is a link to the About Today page for that day.

Keynote speech: “The Creed is Our Bones”

The Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark held its annual Day for Catechists on Saturday 20 September, and I was asked to give the keynote address to get the day going. The title we agreed on was “The Creed is Our Bones”, and I was to talk both about Universalis and about my book, The Creed in Slow Motion.

The event was a sell-out. 230 people came. They were people of all kinds, from all over the diocese, and what struck me most was their energy. There are church events people go to because they can’t think of anything better to do. This was not such an event, and these were not that kind of people. These were people determined to be missionaries within their own parishes and diocese, and not only to give guidance, teaching and inspiration but also to make themselves better equipped for the job – becoming spiritually fitter, if you like. It was amazing and quite humbling.

Thank you, all of you who offered encouragement or offered up prayers. I am by no means a professional speaker, but I enjoyed it and so did the audience, so – thank you.

They filmed the event, and you can watch it here on YouTube. It is just under an hour long.

Ratings and reviews

At the Day for Catechists I found myself helping some people to install Universalis on their phones, and I discovered two facts which were new to me. In the Google Play Store, Universalis had 5 stars out of a possible 5 (it was 4.9 when I looked just now); and in Apple’s App Store, Universalis was the second most popular app in the “Lifestyle” category of paid apps in the UK.

Thank you, all of you who have made this happen. We don’t advertise Universalis, so the way that people get to know it, and start using it, and get the benefit from it, is when you, their friends, tell them about it and encourage them.

Face to face is best, but if a message ever pops up on your screen, asking you for a rating or review, do do something about it if you have time. It will help others recognise Universalis for what it is. You should never be asked more than 3 times a year.

You can also leave a rating or review at any time you feel like it.

The weekly podcasts

Here are the episodes which have come out since the last newsletter. You can listen by clicking on the link. Each is around 20 minutes long.

21 September: Saint Matthew and his Gospel. Why have Gospels? Why have three synoptic Gospels? The madness of “Q”. Can investment bankers be saved?

28 September: The week of the angels and the crack in the clouds. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and the Guardian Angels. St Jerome; the Brazilian Martyrs of Natal. St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Francis of Assisi. A report on the Southwark Day for Catechists.

5 October: The prophet Jonah. Saint Abraham. Saint John Henry Newman.

12 October: Two kinds of outsiders: lepers, and gentiles. The God-fearers. Blessed John Beyzym and the lepers of Madagascar. This Sunday in Brazil: Our Lady of Aparecida and the unexpected people whose patron she is. Devotions to “Our Lady Of” worldwide: incarnation implies location. Keeping popular piety under control. Irish missionaries, Saint Gall and the bear. Saint Teresa turning the Carmelites into Carmelites. Dr Saint Luke being polite about doctors.

More than ten thousand people listen to the podcast, from all over the world. Sometimes by themselves in the car, sometimes sitting at home with the whole family.

If you haven’t listened yet, do. If you have, and you like it, tell all your friends.

• Here is a link to the Podcasts page. You will find all the podcasts listed there. There are over 80 of them by now.
• If you use podcast apps, there are links to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube at the bottom of this newsletter. The Podcasts page has some more links.
• If you don’t want to have to send your friends a link, tell them to go to the home page at universalis.com and they’ll find a Podcasts button at the top right.
• All the Universalis apps and programs will show an alert in the About Today page whenever a new podcast is ready.

New podcast episodes come out on Friday or Saturday each week.

November is coming…

November is traditionally the month when we commemorate the faithful departed. Here are two ways in which Universalis can help.

The Liturgy of the Dead

People sometimes ask us for the liturgy of the dead: either the Divine Office or Mass. This liturgy is already available in Universalis.

1. In a Universalis app or program, bring up the list of dates. On iPhone/iPad and Android, the leftmost button in the toolbar will do this; on Mac and Windows, look in the Dates menu.
2. In the screen which shows you the dates, there will be a button marked “Special” or “More”. Press that button, and you will be able to select the liturgy of the dead.

Remembrance Cards

For technical reasons, this feature is available only on the iPhone and iPad at present. We are working hard to find a way to offer it on Android as well.

You can put your own commemorations of deceased friends and family into Universalis, including (if you feel up to it) a short biography and even a picture.

The resulting Remembrance Card will then appear in the About Today page on their anniversary. On Saturdays and Sundays you will get advance warning of the week’s commemorations; and you can even get them to show in your device’s main calendar.

You can read all about Remembrance Cards here.

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.