This morning I gave a talk during the “Theological Hour” at the Loyola School of Theology in Quezon City. The title of my talk was “Trending: #TheWord” and it was about how to effectively utilize social media for evangelization. The main aim of my hour-long presentation was to broaden the participants’ understanding of social media as well as to show them how they can best use social networking, visual storytelling and digital gaming to proclaim the Gospel to everyone. The audience consisted of students and faculty of the premiere Jesuit theology school. Take a look at the pics below and you’ll notice that they come from various parts of the globe. All photos were taken by Anthony Coloma, SJ.
Read books. Watch a movie. Play games. Compose music. What you can do with your iPad is almost limitless. According to the iPad’s official page, there are now more 65,000 apps for the 9.7-inch iOS device. As if that’s not enough, developers from all over the world submit more apps every single day. The more apps I install on my iPad, the more I am convinced that there is indeed an app for almost anything.
What interests me most are the apps that help people deepen their knowledge of God and practice their faith. I have downloaded, installed and tested many faith-based iPad apps for about a year now and I use some of them on a daily basis. Continue reading →
Today I facilitated a workshop on “Film and Sacraments.” The main purpose of the day-long workshop was to teach participants how to use films to teach the seven Sacraments. As instructional tools, films help to focus on the nature, meaning and purpose of each of the seven Sacraments as well as provide pertinent points for discussion. Continue reading →
This week’s roundup includes the announcement of an app which will allow priests to celebrate Mass with an iPad instead of the printed Roman Missal. Another story of note is the endeavor to translate the Bible into 6,909 languages by 2025. The newly-elected president of the Philippines has named a religious brother as his administration’s DepEd (Department of Education) secretary. There is also the story about the unveiling of the world’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict in Peru.
The featured website this week is Catholic Underground and the featured short film is the award-winning “The Danish Poet”.
App for priests to celebrate Mass
AN Italian priest has developed an application that will let priests celebrate Mass with an iPad on the altar instead of the regular Roman missal. The Rev Paolo Padrini, a consultant with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said the free application will be launched in July in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.Read more…
Religious brother appointed to state cabinet
The incoming Aquino administration has appointed a religious brother to head a crucial government post. De La Salle University president and Chancellor Brother Armin Luistro will be serving as the government’s secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd). In a statement, De La Salle said Luistro accepted the task with the permission of the university’s stakeholders. Read more…
World’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict to be unveiled in Peru
The world’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict will be unveiled on July 11 in the Lima suburb of Pachacamac by the monks from the Monastery of the Incarnation. According to the monks, the cross towers to a height of 42 feet and can be seen for miles. Read more…
People Must Know the Church Loves Them
When people doubt whether the church really loves them, they do not listen to her teachings. This was part of a message delivered by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the senior Vatican official for the global Pontifical Council for Social Communications. In two separate talks given June 4 at the Catholic Media Convention in New Orleans, he urged Catholic reporters, editors and other communicators to help create a space where the world can encounter the truths of the church without feeling condemned or denounced. Read more…
The Catholic Underground, Inc. is so named after some Germans dubbed a short lived comic drawn by Father Chris Decker part of the “catholic underground.” From that point forward (around 2001), the name stuck although catholicunderground.com went through a number of revisions and never actually appeared live on the web. Ideas originally included a network for priests to communicate, a repository of Catholic knowledge, an e-zine, and most recently, a simple blogging community.
Can we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter?
The narrator of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper’s quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all.
In this week’s roundup, we’ll see why Pope Benedict XVI considers priests as a gift for the church and for the world. If you are a Linux newbie you’ll surely find the next link useful as it shows you 5 things new users of the free operating system should know. Would you like to know what it means to call God “Father”? Then the third link is just right for you. This may raise a lot of eyebrows but the Vatican endorses the “Blues Brothers” film. Curious? Then click on the fourth link. The fifth link will show you that where you start your digital day says a lot about you.
The featured website this week is Kuya Mac’s Kuwaderno and the featured short film is Joaquin Baldwin’s “Sebastian’s Voodoo”.
Priests are a Gift for the Church and for the World
“The Year for Priests came to an end on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is traditionally the ‘day of priestly sanctification’, and this time it was especially so”, the Pope told the faithful gathered below his study window in St. Peter’s Square. Read more…
5 Things New Linux Converts Should Know
If you’ve recently converted to Linux from Windows, or if you’re just giving Linux a shot, there are a few things you need to know right off the bat about how Linux works and where the major differences are when compared to Windows. Read more…
Why Call God “Father?”
A hundred years ago this month, Father’s Day was first observed in Spokane, Washington. This June not only the USA but 55 other countries around the world will honor the roles fathers play in the family and the community. This modern secular holiday invites us to ask a very important question — what does it mean to call God “Father?” Read more…
Vatican Endorses “The Blues Brothers”
On the 30th anniversary of the film’s release, “L’Osservatore Romano,” the Vatican’s official newspaper, called the film a “Catholic classic” and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere. Read more…
What Do You Check First: Email or Facebook?
Where you start your digital day says a lot about you, according to a new study from ExactTarget, an email and social media marketing company. If you check email first, the company said, you tend to be more task-oriented and only interact with brands online when you need something, such as researching a deal, getting information about promotions or finding new product information. Read more…
Kuya Mac’s Kuwaderno is the blog of Michael Vivas. Among other things, Michael is a youth leader, an artist, a musician, a prayer warrior, a web designer, a user interface engineer and a usability practitioner. His blog is both eye candy and inspirational.
A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.
The director, Joaquin Baldwin, is an Annie Award nominee director and animator from Paraguay. Living in Los Angeles, he is now finishing his MFA in animation at UCLA. He has received over 50 international awards for his animated films Sebastian’s Voodoo and Papiroflexia, and also several grants including the Jack Kent Cooke full Graduate Scholarship in 2006.
Starting today and henceforth, every Friday, I will feature videos and links that I think will be of interest to regular readers of my blog. And I encourage you to email me (stephencuyos@gmail.com) videos, links and whatnots that you think others might benefit from.
In this week’s roundup, we’ll find out what CBCP Cinema has to say about Shrek Forever After and why 10 European countries support Italy in defending the Crucifix. We will also take a look at the meaning of the names of Jesus’ disciples as well as their occupations. You might be interested to take advantage of the 90+ essential social media resources and 35 fesh free fonts for designers and developers.
Film Review: Shrek Forever After
The film is a fitting farewell that has explored all the possibilities of Shrek’s hyper-narrative with branches of stories coming from various fairy tale inspirations. Shrek Forever After still has the old charm audiences fell in love with. Read more…
10 European States Join Italy to Defend Crucifix
The “crucifix trial” in the European Court of Human Rights has given rise to an unprecedented intervention of 10 member States as third parties. The European Centre for Law and Justice, which was also authorized to become a third party in the court hearing regarding the legitimacy of displaying crucifixes in Italian schools, reported today that ten other States will have this amicus curiae status in the “Lautsi vs. Italy” case. Read more…
Jesus’ Disciples Names: List, Meaning and Occupation
The Greek word of Disciple is ‘mathetes‘ meaning ‘learner’ or ‘follower’. The word means accepting and following the views and practices of the teacher. Apart from a large following of people, Jesus chose twelve disciples during his earthly ministry. Read more…
90+ Essential Social Media Resources
Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve come across a list so enormous, so useful, and so awesome, our futile attempts to describe it have been lost in the tubes of cyberspace. Read more…
35 Fresh FreeFonts for Designers and Developers
It’s essential for Designers to have a good understanding of typography and selection as the importance of typography in design can’t be neglected. The proper selection of typography can convert your normal design into attractive piece of art. Read more…
“I’m 15 years old and I’m Catholic. I love my faith and I really want to share it, which is basically why I created this blog and my magazine (Faithful Magazine). I’m also totally Pro-life.”
About a month ago I facilitated a webinar (online seminar) for Singaporean youth communicators. The title of my presentation was “Church 2.0 – New Media at the Service of the Word”. The main objective of the one-hour presentation was to teach participants how to take advantage of new media in proclaiming the Word of God. The participants gathered at the St. Mary of the Angels Parish in Singapore and I talked to them from Manila via Skype. It was my first time to do such an endeavor so it was kind of a milestone in my media ministry.
The Catholic News, the official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore, recently featured the webinar in its website. Please click here to read the full article.
Last week I posted a list of ten priests who tweet. This time let’s follow these ten consecrated sisters on Twitter.
The ten tech-savvy sisters use Twitter to draw people to God and to communicate His Word through the popular micro-blogging platform. These nuns represent the growing number of priests, religious and lay faithful who make good use of Twitter, as it is a powerful vehicle for evangelization and can provide both inspiration and encouragement.
This list below is not a complete list of all nuns who tweet, but by following any one of them you will be able to connect to many more religious sisters on Twitter.
Name: Sr. Helena Burns Location: Chicago, IL, USA Website: http://www.hellburns.blogspot.com Bio: Media Nun. Philosophy, Media Literacy, Theology of Body. Proof of God’s existence: hummingbirds, hockey, Popeye’s red beans and rice.
Name: Sr. Pat Location: Baltimore, Maryland USA Website: http://www.bonsecoursvocations.org Bio: I’m a Catholic Sister of Bon Secours & help folks figure out life options (what’s God want). I like spirituality religion.Blog www.bonsecoursvocations.org/blog
Name: Sister Julie Location: Chicago, Illinois Website: http://anunslife.org Bio: A Nun’s Life Ministry helps people discover and grow in their their life’s calling by engaging their questions about God, faith, and religious life.
Name: Sr Lisa M Doty Location: Rome – Italy Bio: a missionary, a nun, dabble in graphics, music & techstuff, with one goal in mind
Name: Sister Anne Location: Chicago Website: http://romans8v29.blogspot.com Bio: Catholic sister (nun), happy to belong to Jesus as a Daughter of St. Paul for over (ahem) 30 years.
Name: srpat Location: Spokane, Washingtton Website: http://sisterpatricia.com Bio: Catholic – Poor Clare Nun – Pray, Write, Internet and Radio – oh and family, friends and Pi (my parrot)
She pointed out that poverty, disease and education are the big challenges facing today’s world. Then later she asked: can social networks solve these social problems? I completely agreed with her when she said that online activism can effect real change in the offline world and that digital advocacy could translate to analog action. Aside from being a great source for news, social networks can also serve as platforms for collaboration and as mouthpieces to mobilize people.
The tech-savvy queen mentioned how social networks were utilized to help the victims of typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines and other examples of online collaboration that led to real-world change. She said, “Digitizing ourselves have heightened our awareness to be selfless. What we need now is to amplify our actions.”
Following priests on Twitter can be a stimulating experience. While their main goal is to spread God’s Word, they also tweet about their everyday experiences, their opinion on issues that affect all of us, and about other things that engage and excite their attention and curiosity.
There are those who tweet their prayers. Others talk about the liturgy. There are also those who provide the latest updates from their Church and from their mission areas. Some of them even have tens of thousands of followers. The active presence of priests on Twitter is another proof that clergymen would really use all possible means to fulfil their mission to make disciples of all nations.
This list below is not a complete list of all priests who tweet, but by following any one of them you will be able to connect to many more clerics on Twitter.
Name: Rev. Bosco Peters Location: New Zealand Website: http://www.liturgy.co.nz Bio: Hi I’m a priest enthusiastic about healthy spirituality and worship that connects. Find more than 160 character thoughts at my website www.liturgy.co.nz
Name: Roderick Vonhögen Location: iPhone: -33.873695,151.223495 Website: http://fatherroderick.sqpn.com Bio: Dutch Catholic priest, CEO of the Star Quest Production Network (www.sqpn.com); host of the Daily Breakfast podcast; XBL Gamer Tag ‘Fr Roderick’.
Name: Fr. Wade Fahnestock Location: Hyatt Place-Lakeland Center Website: http://BlueKirk.org Bio: Old Catholic Priest on mission, musician, pastor, social networker, marketing consultant
Name: FatherBob Location: South Melbourne, Australia Website: http://www.fatherbob.com.au Bio: Founder of the Fr. Bob Maguire Foundation, Open Family, Emerald Hill Mission. Parish priest of Sts Peter and Pauls South Melbourne. Cranky old man
Name: Fr. Jay Finelli Location: Rhode Island Website: http://www.ipadre.net Bio: Roman Catholic Priest from the Diocese of Providence, Podcaster, Webmaster, Mac Geek, Live Steam enthusiast.
Name: Father Stefan Location: Fairfax, VA Website: http://www.fatherstefan.com Bio: Father Stefan Starzynski is widely known as The Healing Priest. He conducts a Charismatic Mass on the 2nd Sat at St Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax, VA
