Electric Prayer

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November is the month of the dead: a month of celebration rather than mourning. Unreliable statistics suggest that out of all the Christians there have ever been, 1 in 3 are living now. This means that for every one of us on Earth, there are two team members who have passed through death; and we are united into one single community by prayer.

The Liturgy of the Dead

Here is how to find the liturgy of the dead 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 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.

A NEW FEATURE THIS YEAR: in the Settings screen, in the “Remembrance Cards” section, you will find a switch labelled “Repeat in November”. If you turn this on, you will see, throughout November, a commemoration of everyone in your Remembrance Cards list. For instance, if you have someone who died on 23 July, “Repeat in November” will show that person’s anniversary not only on 23 July each year but also on 23 November. Thus in one month you will be able to commemorate all your dead, forgetting none of them. This is a new feature, and a little experimental: so if you find it useful, we will be glad to hear about it.

“Resurrection Is Now”

Dom Aelred Watkin (1918-1997) was a wise and respected Head Master of Downside from 1962 to 1975. His book Resurrection is Now is a rare opportunity to benefit from his understanding. This book covers death in all its aspects, both as an end and as a beginning, and looks at life from the perspective of a preparation for death. A learned man, Dom Aelred nevertheless wears his learning lightly, and the reader will find something enlightening on almost every page.

You can read Resurrection Is Now as part of the Daily Books feature built in to all the Universalis apps and programs. It is free. You can find all the instructions here.

You can also buy it as an e-book from Apple and Amazon.

This year, for the first time, you can also listen to it being read in eight instalments, on Monday and Wednesday in each week in November. It is accessible in the same way as the podcasts, so if you are interested, the Podcasts page is the place to start.

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.

19 October: Pope St John Paul II. The Ugandan martyrs. St John Capistrano and the minaret on St Paul’s. St Anthony Mary Claret: assassinations and books.

26 October: Simon and Jude, the unknown Apostles. Saint Alfonso Rodríguez. All Saints means all the saints. “Saint Me”, an exercise for All Saints’ Day.

2 November: All Souls’ Day. Why we pray for the dead. Bereavement as the next step in a relationship. Keeping track of deceased friends with the Remembrance Cards feature.

9 November: A repeat of the podcast for this week last year: Saints Martin of Tours, Margaret of Scotland, Elizabeth of Hungary and Albert the Great. Friar Julian, the lost Hungarians and the Mongols. More of the gift of death. The prophet Jonah. Saint Abraham. Saint John Henry Newman.

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 almost 90 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.

Banned by Amazon (but not a crisis)

The Universalis apps and programs run on programmable things – phones, tablets, and computers. Some of you have e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle, and for these, you need an e-book rather than an app. Because Universalis gives you the liturgy for each day, and the days of each year are different, this means that each e-book covers a fixed period, and at the end of that period, you need a new e-book.

The most direct, and most flexible way is for you to create the e-book for yourself each time. This page has the instructions.

We used to offer a short cut for the Amazon Kindle

To save you the bother of creating e-books for yourself, for over 10 years we have published ready-made “Liturgy of the Hours” and “Readings at Mass” e-books for the Amazon Kindle. They have contained the exact readings and liturgy for each day for the coming year. They cost money each time, whereas you could have created these e-books without having to pay yearly, but for some people the added convenience was worth it. Many of you have been buying these e-books year after year.

The short cut is over

No longer. Amazon have now banned all the coming year’s “Liturgy of the Hours” and “Readings at Mass” e-books from the Kindle Store. First, they sent an anonymous email on 10 November announcing the decision, and giving no reason. When we replied asking for a reason, three further  emails arrived on 11 November reiterating the decision. The last of these emails stated explicitly that Amazon are refusing to say why they have banned these e-books.

Amazon are within their rights. When you start to use an Amazon Kindle, you agree to give them the right to decide what you shall and shall not be able to buy. This incident simply shows you what you have already agreed to.

You can still get e-books, even on the Kindle

If you were getting Kindle e-books to use on anything other than a Kindle (phones, tablets, computers), get an app instead: it is more flexible and does not need renewing year after year.

If you were getting Kindle e-books to use on a Kindle, here is how to create e-books for it. It is not very complicated, and it does give you additional flexibility, because you can decide (for instance) what Hours you want, and exactly what local calendar you want to use.

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.