Electric Prayer

Daytime hours now available

Posted by universalis on 6 July 2009

The daytime hours are Terce (mid-morning), Sext (midday), and None (afternoon). Collectively they are known as the Little Hours, because they are short prayer breaks for the working day.

These hours are now available on the Universalis web site. If you are using the downloaded Universalis programs, you can get a free update here.

If you are using the Universalis application on the iPhone or iPod Touch, the latest version of the software (1.30) contains a slightly simplified version of these hours. The next version is on the way and should be with you in a couple of weeks: you will be notified automatically when it is ready, and given an opportunity to download it free of charge.

Posted in Downloadable Universalis, The Universalis site | 4 Comments »

Price reduction

Posted by universalis on 3 July 2009

We have reduced the price of a licence for the downloadable Universalis program from £30 to £19.99. On 3 July 2009 this was approximately $33 or €23. (To get an up-to-date equivalent, click on the links).

Prices for the Universalis application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, sold through the iPhone App Store, are cheaper: £14.99 / $24.99 / €14.99.

Of course the web version continues to be free. So does the Catholic Calendar application in the iPhone App Store. For other systems, if you just want a free Catholic Calendar and nothing else, download the Universalis program and don’t bother to buy a registration code for it.

Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Comments Off on Price reduction

The AvantGo web service is closing

Posted by universalis on 12 June 2009

An announcement on AvantGo’s web site says that they are closing their mobile web service at the end of June 2009.

Here is our page about the available options.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The AvantGo web service is closing

Daytime hours coming soon

Posted by universalis on 10 June 2009

The “Little Hours” will appear in Universalis soon: Terce for mid-morning, Sext at midday, and None in the middle of the afternoon.

Posted in Downloadable Universalis, The Universalis site | 8 Comments »

“Though some hesitated”

Posted by universalis on 8 June 2009

Yesterday’s Gospel was from Matthew 28:16-20, and it has this sentence:

When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated.

I’m sure one could draw out some terribly pious moral from this, but I’m not interested in that. For me, that sentence is fun because it shines a little light into the very human process of writing a gospel. Anyone who has ever written a family memoir will know the problem well.

We can’t say everyone behaved perfectly on that occasion, because it would be untrue: X. didn’t. We can’t say everyone behaved perfectly except X, because it would be unkind: poor X. just had a wobbly moment.

And so a passion for truth and a passion for charity collide, and the result is the true but tactful phrase: “though some hesitated”.

For me, little things like this are the strongest argument for the authenticity of the Gospels.

Posted in Reflections | 4 Comments »

Narrower banners for webmasters

Posted by universalis on 31 May 2009

Someone asked us if we could make the Universalis banner narrower so that she could fit it at the side of her blog. Something like this:

So now, as you see, we have. You can choose your own banner width, within reason (because the banners don’t get any deeper as they get narrower). Instructions are here.

Posted in Blogs, The Universalis site | 2 Comments »

Copy and Paste

Posted by universalis on 29 May 2009

In the last mailing to the Universalis mailing list I forgot to mention that the new version of the Windows download now has easier ways of copying to the Clipboard. In addition, the Windows Mobile download , which couldn’t copy at all, now has that ability. In both cases you can copy the current reading or the whole page.

Follow the links to get the downloads and see the instructions.

Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Comments Off on Copy and Paste

e-books: what is the missing ingredient?

Posted by universalis on 18 May 2009

There is a debate in the e-book world – well, not so much a debate as an extended rumination – about how to make e-books worth more to the people who buy them. We know the conveniences by now – easy portability – and the inconvenience – slowness for flicking through, and expense when you leave them on the train. New e-book readers are coming on the market every week or so, and people do buy them. But still the question remains: how do we make people want e-books, and how do we make them want them more than they want books? As Joe Wikert says, “Figure out how to add more value to the ebook“. But how?

This post will give a possible answer to that question, and also give an explanation to the people who email me every day to ask whether there’s going to be a version of Universalis for the Amazon Kindle (and if not, why not).

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Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | 9 Comments »

The Church of the Future

Posted by universalis on 17 April 2009

Many people will more or less rely on the Church, who will somehow, and from the outside, as it were, share her inner life. The parish will remain the essential cell of community life, but it will scarcely be possible to keep up the entire parish system as it now exists (a system that is of rather recent date). We will have to learn how to come together, and that will be an enrichment. In the astonishing diversity of Christian forms of life today, the Church tomorrow is already very clearly among us.

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Posted in Reading | 3 Comments »

God’s mirth

Posted by universalis on 16 April 2009

So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear… The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels… never concealed His tears. Yet He concealed something… He never restrained His anger… Yet He restrained something… There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or imperious isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that is was His mirth.

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Posted in Reading | 2 Comments »

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