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.

The following is a list of six apps that I suggest every Catholic should install on their iPads. You can use them to browse the Lectionary, pray the Breviary, study the Catechism of the Catholic Church, prepare for Confession, recite the Rosary and read the Bible with your iPad.

iBreviary Pro iBreviary “Pro Terra Sancta” is the application that brings the traditional Catholic prayer of the Breviary and all the texts of the Liturgy on your iPhone and iPad.

Confession: A Roman Catholic App With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance.

iRosary (Catholic Rosary) Got a few minutes waiting in line? iRosary turns this into time with God. Built for your busy lifestyle, iRosary works like a traditional Rosary, but tells you the prayers, remembers your place, and is always with you when you need it.

Compendium – Catechism of the Catholic Church The Compendium app features a summary of principles, often in question-and-answer format, contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church through an easy-to-use, immediate user interface.

Universalis Daily psalms, prayers and readings from the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, seven times a day: Morning Prayer (Lauds), Evening Prayer (Vespers), Night Prayer (Compline), the Office of Readings, and the three daytime hours: Terce, Sext, and None.

Catholic Calendar Liturgical calendar for every year from 1970 to 2300 and beyond. Feasts and celebrations according to the General Calendar and the local calendars of the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Ireland, and others.

The participants were mostly parish-based catechists and religion educators. Aside from teaching them the steps in facilitating self-reflection and group discussion on films and the sacraments, I also demoed to the participants the fundamentals of devising discussion questions so that films will help deepen their understanding of the sacraments.

I used the following slides during the workshop. You are free to download, use and remix them.

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…
• Bible translators hope to have every language covered in 15 years
  A Christian endeavor of almost 2,000 years could be substantially completed by 2025. Protestant translators expect to have the Bible — or at least some of it — written in every one of the world’s 6,909 spoken languages.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…

Featured Website: The Catholic Underground

URL: http://www.catholicunderground.com/

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.

Featured Short Film: The Danish Poet

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTef0HWbW_M

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.

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…

Featured Website: Kuya Mac’s Kuwaderno

URL: http://kuyamac.tumblr.com/

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.

Featured Short Film: Sebastian’s Voodoo

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePWK0qfisE

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.

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…

Featured Website: Faithful Catholic Girl

URL: http://www.faithfulcatholicgirl.blogspot.com/

“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.”

Featured Video: Amazing Grace

Source: http://vimeo.com/4169677

The following video features real-life stories of ordinary people who have experienced God’s amazing grace.

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.

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: SisterKris Location: Los Angeles Website: http://www.thehoneycombedheart.blogspot.com Bio: Catholic religious sister (read:nun), democrat, loves the Latin Mass
	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: Benedictine Sisters Location: MO, WY and AZ Website: http://www.benedictinesisters.org Bio: Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration; Catholic women religious; Makers of low-gluten altar breads
	Name: Sr. Susan Wolf, SND Location: Washington DC Bio: SND, Equipping Catholics to evangelize; using social media for mission.
	Name: Margaret Kerry fsp Location: Boston Website: http://paulinelaity.blogspot.com Bio: Pauline living in community of Catholic women serving people through new media.
	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.”

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: Fr. Jonathan Morris Location: New York Website: http://www.fatherjonathan.com Bio: Fox News Analyst, Author, Catholic Priest
	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. George Mabura Location: California Website: http://www.usccb.org/yearforpriests Bio: I am Roman Catholic priest. Faithful to the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
	Name: Fr. John Zuhlsdorf Location: iPhone: 51.512024,-0.117571 Website: http://www.wdtprs.com/blog Bio: Catholic Priest, Blogger, Columnist – fatherzonline.com
	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
	Name: Fr. Chris Decker Location: Baton Rouge, LA Website: http://www.catholicunderground.com Bio: a priest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and a disciple of the New Evangelization.