iFaith: H2ONews - Stay in touch with BXVI

Thursday, 10 June 2010
H2O News - Follow the Pope and the Church in the world through your iPhone and/or iPod Touch.

This is a video-based news application that is free for download among iPhone and iPod Touch users. The App itself broadcasts news items from a variety of Catholic news agencies including The Vatican Television Centre, Vatican Radio, Salt & Light TV, Popular Television, KTO, EWTN and Cançao Nova.
The focus of H2Onews is to provide news of the life of the Church and of social and cultural events that directly pertain to Catholics everywhere.
News is available in three formats through H2Onews: Video, Audio and Text. It’s great to have the options, particularly if you are required to be particularly frugal with your download quota. The news items are generally brief, the videos themselves are generally two minutes or so in length and they cover a variety of topical news stories. Through H2Onews, one is able to follow the travels and speeches of Pope Benedict XVI as well as other significant ecclesial activities. I made a lot of use of this App last month during the Pope’s visit to Fatima in Portugal as it allowed me to follow his movements and speeches with ease.
H2Onews also offers feature stories about feast days of Saints and other interest pieces dealing with historical events, places and proclamations.
This App is available in eight languages: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and Chinese and is very easy to use. In all, it’s a great way to stay up to date with current happenings in the Church.
I’ve found the App to be a great way to stay up to date with news from the Catholic perspective, particularly in recent weeks where it seems that many news outlets seem to have a particularly anti-Catholic bias in their reporting. AND it’s available for free!

iFaith: Audiobooks rocks the iPod

Thursday, 06 May 2010
THERE seems to be nowhere to go after reviewing such a monstrous App as iPieta, so in this week’s column I will take a look at a different type of App.

Whilst not specifically designed for Catholics or Christians, ‘Audiobooks’ is an App that has something for everyone.
The application enables the user to access a library of over 2,800 audio books that exist in the public domain. These books are downloadable for free through use of this cheap application. Being in the public domain basically means that one is unable to access any recent publications; however, there is a veritable treasure trove of classic literature to be had.
Along with many of the classics of secular literature such as Charles Dickens, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and Robert Louis Stevenson, one is able to have full access to a wide variety of classic Christian literature.
From Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy to Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, from the full text of the Bible (read in a wide variety of Catholic and non-Catholic translations) to the writings of the Church Fathers including St Clement of Alexandria, to St Ambrose, St Ignatius of Antioch, St Augustine etc.
There is a whole lot of listening to be done.
There is even a growing catalogue of GK Chesterton texts that are being added to the collection (which I find particularly exciting).
During lent, I was listening to St Therese of Lisiuex’ Story of a Soul and I find that I’m best able to listen whilst in the car, so I’ve taken to hooking up my iPhone to the car stereo – a great way to make use of what would otherwise be wasted travel time.
So, how does it work?
‘Audiobooks’ runs through an online audio book library called LibriVox, a not-for-profit project that has volunteers read the books and then releases recordings for people to download for free. Books that I have listened to are proficiently read and of a high audio quality.
Chapters are divided up into different tracks and the application will keep your spot in the track bookmarked if you need to stop listening at any point.
In a fast paced world, where one is often at odds to find the time to read, this is one great way to expand our knowledge and understanding of our Faith.

iFaith: iPieta -The ULTIMATE Catholic iPhone app

iPieta: the ULTIMATE Catholic iPhone app
Wednesday, 03 March 2010

Now, I may have said this somewhere else, but in all honesty, this really takes the cake …
A good friend of mine put me on to this one, and for this I am truly thankful. iPieta has pretty much EVERYTHING one could possibly want in a Catholic iPhone application. In such a short space as is afforded for this review it is impossible to include in everything that this App contains, but here I will provide you with what I consider to be the real highlights.
iPieta is divided into four main sections:
1) The Bible, in both an English translation (Douay Rhiems) and Latin Vulgate
2) Liturgical Calendar (both the Ordinary, Norvus Ordo and the Extraordinary, Tridentine) including readings and solemnities, feasts, memorials etc.
3) The Prayer Book is exhaustive with literally hundreds of prayers easily navigated through via the indexed tables. (many of the prayers are available in audio too)
4) The library, titled Veritas is the real gem in my view. It is here that one can find a veritable smorgasbord of solid Catholic teaching; from the documents of pretty well ALL the ecumenical councils of the Church, through to Bible commentaries, the writings of Saints and Doctors of the Church (including the major works of St Theresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, and the entirety of St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica,), Papal documents (going back to Pope Pius VI), catechisms, biographies of Saints and whole lot more. The really fantastic thing about all this is that pretty well all of the documents are fully searchable via the indexed tables (which makes it extremely user friendly).
Realistically, I don’t know how much reading of these substantially meaty spiritual/literary works I will actually be doing on my iPhone, (perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I really like the whole experience of a book, the touch, smell etc) but the convenience of having such incredible writings there for such easy reference is a great way familiarise yourself with their content, and a wonderful way to clear up your own, or others misunderstandings of core elements of our faith. For an incredibly low price of $3.99 (which when you think about it is less than a small meal at MacDonald’s) I think there’s not much more anyone could really want in a Catholic iPhone Application. Without a doubt the BEST Catholic iPhone App out there.

Catholic stuff in the new media - an introduction to iFaith

So, earlier this year I published a review for a Catholic iPhone App in a Catholic youth magazine with a circulation of about 2000 people. This was picked up by the editor of 'The Record' our local Catholic newspaper as being 'newsworthy' and so, I began writing a some other reviews for him to publish in his paper.
I thought I'd throw them up here for anyone and everyone, just in case you're interested.  I will continue to post new ones as the paper publishes them as I think it's important to support people who are acting, under the Pope's encouragement, to bring the Good News about Christ to everyone, even making use of new media.
And so, without any further ado, here is the first column that was run by The Record

iMissal: a must have for Catholics on the go
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The App itself contains a complete Roman Catholic Missal, complete with all the readings for each day of the year (see note below) and the order of the Mass, as well as a comprehensive Catholic Prayer book and a daily scripture verse generator (Our Daily Bread).
The Liturgical Calendar displays all of the liturgical seasons and is colour coded based on liturgical season.
It shows Holy Days of Obligation, Solemnities, Major Feasts, Saints, etc. The calendar is currently available for years 1990 – 2050!
I’ve been using the iMissal (a screenshot is pictured at right) for a little over a year now and have found it to be particularly useful in a number of contexts: from reminding me to do a little pre-reading before going to Mass, to simply being able to find the right prayer at the right time.
Of the Catholic Apps available on the iPhone I intend to start this series with the one I use the most.
The iMissal costs $5.99 from the App store, which really is a bargain, especially when you consider that you can pay upwards of $60 for a regular weekday Missal.
I do however wonder what people are going to think when I pull out my iPhone in Mass? They’ll probably think I’m texting or emailing while I should be praying...
Just a brief note of caution: the liturgical texts provided in iMissal are used with the permission of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and the International Committee on English in the Liturgy. They are the official texts approved for use in the dioceses of the United States by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops so sometimes you may find that there are occasional differences between what is on the app and what is read during Mass here in Australia.

Who's in control?

So, I felt moved to write something about the recent happenings regarding the governing of our fair country…
Our new Prime Minister, the Honourable Julie Gillard has ousted Kevin Rudd and taken the top position. This is indeed nothing new, and what I write here is most likely to be re-hashing old news, but I felt somewhat moved to comment on what this may mean for the country.
As soon as I found out what had happened I posted the following question as my faccebook status: Does anyone know??? what's Julia's voting record regarding life issues? Indeed, I had a fair idea, but I was wanting to have people give it some thought. And, as I thought, that simple question was the impetus for some considerable debate. For those of you who are somewhat unaware I’ll give you a brief run-down of her stance on these issues and what it might mean for us here in Australia.

The elevation of Julia Gillard to the top job of Australian politics is being touted as a victory for women across Australia, and it seems to me as though this will be one of the central items in her election campaign. "A woman Prime Minister?!" It’s never been done before.
I see some similarities with Obama’s campaign. Focus on this being a first for the nation and it really doesn’t matter what the individual’s policies are. But, let’s look a little deeper.
Julia Gillard is a founding member of the political movement ‘Emily’s List’ a faction within the Australian Labor Party which seeks to promote ‘progressive’ women in politics. "First established in the United States, Emily's List is a feminist organisation which raises money to have pro-abortion women elected to parliament. It functions within the Democratic Party in the US and the ALP in Australia. Emily's List candidates also support "equity", i.e., the preferential hiring and promotion of women, and "diversity", meaning homosexual rights [redefining the time honoured institution of marriage]...It claims to have 3,000 members and to have helped 115 women into state and federal parliaments."
This is pretty scary stuff folks. And Julia Gillard lives up to all that her membership in this organisation requires - she has a particularly nasty anti-life voting record:

"Julia Gillard voted in favour of destroying humans in the embryonic stage of life for the sake of scientific research.
Reference Pg 144 (127) Hansard Prohibition Of Human Cloning For Reproduction And The Regulation Of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006

Julia Gillard voted in favour of legalizing the use of RU486, a drug which causes the death of the unborn child, and has also killed women from consequent heavy bleeding.
Reference. Pg. 52 (70) Hansard Thursday 16th February 2006. Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal Of Ministerial Responsibility For Approval Of Ru486) Bill 2005."

My initial reaction was one of alarm… To have someone like that in the top political position in this country is indeed a scary prospect. Should someone who is a self-proclaimed socialist with radical tendencies be the prime minister of this country. It is time to mobilise and do something about this sad state of affairs. People need to be made aware of the dangers in having such an anti-life leader in our country.
We need to pray. Pray for her. Pray for the unborn. Pray for our nation.

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria!

I devote this blog “through shadows and images…” to Mary, the mother of Wisdom Incarnate, my Lord Jesus Christ. May all that I write here, on this page, and everywhere give you the glory and praise that justice requires and in turn may your Son be glorified in all that I do.

This is intended to be merely a place where I am able to record my musings on issues dealing with faith, the Church and other related topics. I put all that I write into the hands of Our Blessed Lady and under her patronage. I also take as a patron John Cardinal Henry Newman, who is soon to be beatified. I take his oft-quoted saying as the name for my blog, as I am seeking what he sought: to arrive, "through shadows and images” to TRUTH (see John 14:6). John Henry Newman, pray for me.
Ave Maria!