Lumen Fidei

By now you have heard that Pope Francis's first encyclical, Lumen Fidei has been published and made available to the public via the Vatican website. Currently, you can download the document as a PDF at the site. If you wish to read it on a your Kindle or other e-reader, you can read it as a PDF or you can convert it to any desired ebook format using Calibre (for personal use only).

For a summary of the encyclical you can read the Catholic World Report.

Ignatius Press will be releasing a hardback copy soon.
Rome Reports Video

Tuesday Tech Talk: Last Minute, Low Cost Gifts

For this final Tuesday Tech Talk entry before Christmas, I thought I would share my last minute low cost, gift ideas to give your Catholic techie. Most of the items I recommend are priced under $20 and can be downloaded instantly or picked up at a local office supply or electronics store.

Amazon Gift Card - We love gift cards in our family because you can buy what you want, when you want. We often wait for after-Christmas sales to use our gift cards. The Amazon gift card provides the techie with a number of flexible options. He can purchase apps, media content or even electronic hardware. By the way, Amazon has a large number of Catholic eBooks, including the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Some of them are FREE! I recommend using this link with a discerning eye as not all the content is guaranteed to be loyal to the Church magisterium.

iTunes Gift Card - OK, I promise this will not turn this into a list of gift cards, but this time of year you can often find deals to purchase iTunes cards at reduced rates. That means FREE money. The iTunes store has the largest app library and lots of media content too, including the iMissal app.

Surge Protector - I think it's crazy that we will invest a large sum on a quality laptop or other electronic device and skimp on a surge protector (if we even get one). I recommend doing some research for the appropriate surge protector for your needs.

Screen Cleaners - I like to use the iKlear products for cleaning my iDevices and laptop screens. The cloths that come with the kit are good to carry in a laptop bag to clean up before a meeting. The larger cloths are great to keep in your desk.

Sugru - This great little invention looks and feels like Play-Do. It is a malleable rubber that can be used to enhance, repair or trick up your tech gear. Your imagination is your only limitation. Once the sugru is adhered and formed to a surface it will eventually harden. I have used it to repair eye glassed and an iPhone charger chord.

Catholic e-Books - I mentioned above that Amazon carries a number of Catholic e-Books. If you don't want to worry about the fidelity of the content, I recommend purchasing your e-Books at Aquinas and More, Ignatius Press or Scepter Publishers. Wherever you choose to make your purchase, I recommend Surrender by Father Larry Richards and Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva by Eric Sammons.

Tuesday Tech Talk:USCCB Revamps Online Catechism

The USCCB website has recently updated their online version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The "e-book" version of the CCC is now more user friendly. You can now make searches, use hyperlinks to maneuver around on the book and you can even print pages from the site.

Here is an image of the homepage:

Tuesday Tech Talk: Free Catholic eBook

Today, in honor of the Feast Day of St. Ignatius, Loyola Press is making one of its books available for FREE download in all major ebook formats. The book is entitled Call Me Lopez written by Margaret Slif and is a fictional account about a 21st Century woman's encounter with St. Ignatius.

You can download the book by going to the Loyola Press FREE eBook link.

True Freedom

Today, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan's book True Freedom: On Protecting Human Dignity and Religious Liberty is available to download at Amazon for 99¢. This short book (only 37 pages long) is an important resource in helping one learn the Church's teaching on freedom. This particularly important as the Church in the United States faces the recent attack on religious freedom.

Most of us learned when we were very young that this country was founded on a principle of religious freedom. Did anyone ever teach us what that really meant? What does this mean today, when we live under the "dictatorship of relativism"?

This is a great way to start your summer reading program. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read the book on your computer through Amazon or on the Kindle app available on all Apple iProducts and Android phones.

For a more comprehensive review of the book go to Brandon Vogt's review.

Introduction to the Devout Life

We recently celebrated the feast day of St. Francis de Sales who is the patron of writers (presumably this would include bloggers). One of the great gifts he has given the Church is his spiritual classic, Introduction to the Devout Life (At the end of the post, I provide additional links for obtaining a copy of the book).

Last month, I recommended Be a Man! by Father Larry Richards as a starting point for implementing consistent, daily, planned spiritual reading. I chose that title because it was written specifically for men of the laity. I have chosen Introduction to the Devout Life (IDL) for the same reason. It was written with the  laity in mind.

St. Francis de Sales was ahead of his time. The idea of the universal call to holiness is common to us now, but the laity of the 16th Century were not privy to this teaching. St. Francis actually addresses this in his Preface:

"But my object is to teach those who are living in towns, at court, in their own households, and whose calling obliges them to a social life, so far as externals are concerned. Such persons are apt to reject all attempt to lead a devout life under the plea of impossibility[.]" (vi)

St. Francis actually wrote that "it is not however, my own choice or wish which brings this Introduction before the public" (vii). He was instead urged by a "devout Religious" to publish the work.

In IDL, de Sales describes devotion as that guide that “not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly” (p. 3). St. Francis de Sales directs a person to ponder Jacob’s Ladder, in order to help a person understand how to progress from simply doing good to doing good carefully, frequently and instinctively. He asserts the two poles of this spiritual ladder are meditative prayer, which seeks God’s love, and the second is the Sacraments, which dispense God’s love. The rungs of the ladder are the virtues and graces by which we ascend to join God’s love or descend to share His love with others in acts of mercy and charity.

St. Francis organized IDL into meditations. The meditations suggested by St. Francis de Sales act as instruments of purification, but are not themselves the purifying agent. Neither does the one who meditates purify himself, but rather the meditations prepare the soul to accept God’s sanctifying grace. When the meditations are obediently performed “they (by God’s Grace) will root out both sin and its affections from your heart (XIII, p. 24). As sin is abandoned and the will of God embraced, we seek to know, love and serve God. The CCC (2706) teaches, “to the extent that we are humble and faithful, we discover in meditation the movements that stir the heart and we are able to discern them.” This process stirs us to ask the question, "Lord, what do you want me to do?”

Introduction to the Devout Life - Multiple Formats (Some FREE!)
Online Searchable - Christian Classic Ethereal Library

PDF - CCEL

mp3 - CCEL (Recorded by a volunteer but adequate quality to supplement study.)

eBook - Amazon (Kindle)

Paperback - Aquinas & More

Tuesday Tech Talk: Basic Catholic Tech Tools

This last Tuesday Tech Talk I thought I would list out the basic tech tools every Catholic techie should have in his toolbox.

Bible - The mobile app created by Olive Tree is the still the best functional way to read and access the Bible when on the go. They have a New American Bible Catholic version available for $20. I wish they would make an RSVE edition; the Kindle version is difficult to maneuver.

Blog - There a number of great Catholic blogs from which to choose. If you are just starting to read Catholic blogs, I recommend adding Father Z's Blog written by Father John Zuhlsdorf. He consistently writes insightful and witty posts. While he is easy to read, he writes frankly and does not water down the truth.

Catechesis - Catholic Answers provides a great deal of accessable resources for learning, sharing and defending the faith. 

Catholic Calendar - The best way to keep track of feast days and holy day of obligation is the Universalis Roman Catholic calendar app. When you have Internet access you can also download the Liturgy of the Hours and Daily Readings for that day, the previous and the following.  It is free.

Daily Missal - Although the iBreviary (reviewed here) provides a decent missal app for free, I believe the iMissal app is simpler to use. I recently reviewed the iMissal for Tuesday Tech Talk.

e-Book - Recently the number of authentic, Catholic e-books available has increased. The release of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in e-book format makes it the hands down winner. The price is set at $18.99, but you need to view that as an investment.

Liturgy of the Hours - The iBreviary app will provide the most affordable and efficient way to pray the "official prayer of the Church." 

Lives of the Saints - Saint of the Day narrowly edges out Saint a Day because it has an audio component and a cleaner look. It also has a social media link which allows you to share with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Mass Times - If you travel quite a lot or need to find a church, the Mass Times app is must. The app not only provides you with a list of the nearest parishes to your location, but it is integrated with Maps so you can get directions. In addition to mass times, it provides times for the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Media Library - EWTN maintains a large library archive of audio and document files. Additionally, the site streams live shows. If it's on EWTN you know it's going to be doctrinally sound.

Prayer Book - There are a number of prayer apps available but none as comprehensive as the iPieta app. This is the mobile app version of the little blue book you see daily mass attendees carrying with them. This app is more than a prayer book; it also contains a vast library of writings from saints, church fathers and the popes.

Rosary - I debated including a Rosary app, but in the end I had to go with the free CD's provided by CatholiCity. I copied my Rosary CD to my iPhone and use it to pray the rosary on my commute to or from work.

Tuesday Tech Talk: Calibre

Today's Tuesday Tech Talk continues the discussion about e-books. If you have recently purchased or been given an iPad, Kindle, Nook or other e-reader, you may be wanting to download some of your Catholic reading onto them. If you will recall, last week I reviewed some of the Catholic publishers who have entered the digital age by providing some of their publications in e-book format. Before you go drop a lot of money on new books, make sure to read this post first.

You'd be surprised at the number of classic Catholic works that are available for FREE (and legal) on the Internet because they are in the public domain. This includes famous titles like Introduction to the Devout Life and Imitation of Christ. One problem I encountered early on was dealing with the multiple e-book formats and finding a copy compatible with my reader.

While trying to figure this out, I stumbled upon free software that converts most e-book formats into the format of your choice. It's called Calibre. Rather than going through the steps, I am providing a video tutorial below. You cannot convert DRM protected copies of books, but you can convert those that are open for sharing like the ones provided in the links below. One thing I like to use Calibre for is creating my own e-books. For example, if I find an article online that I want to read later, I can convert it into a PDF file and then use Calibre to convert it to an epub to read on my iPad.

Here are some ebook links:

The Thin Veil: Building a Catholic ebook Library on the Cheap

Free Catholic eBooks

E-Books for SQPN

Calibre video tutorial:

Catholic e-Books

Photo by libraryman

Today’s Tuesday Tech Talk focuses on e-books, the fastest growing sector in the publishing industry. Last year, e-book sales increased by 177%.  Amazon recently reported that e-book sales on their website exceeded regular books. Only recently have Catholic publishers and authors entered the world of e-book publishing in earnest.  The purpose of this post is to highlight the Catholic publishers and authors who are taking advantage of this new medium.

Ave Maria Press publishes their e-books and e-textbooks through Amazon and uses the Kindle format. Ave Maria was founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross and specializes in textbooks and books on prayer and spirituality.

Ignatius Press publishes their own e-books and offers over 300 titles, including those written by popular authors like Father Larry Richards and Pope Benedict XVI. They offer their books in both .prc (Kindle) format and the standard epub format. Although, Ignatius Press gives instructions on downloading each of their e-books, it appears their Kindle format may not be compatible with the Kindle app for iPads and other devices.

Our Sunday Visitor also publishes their e-books in the Kindle format through Amazon. While they currently do not boast a large e-book collection, they do have some of the best prices.  The collection includes books from Father Benedict Groeschel, Scott Hahn and Patrick Madrid.

Scepter Publishers are making their e-books available through both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. This means the books are available in the Kindle format and the epub format used by the Nook. Scepter’s e-books include many of the books written by and about St. Josemaría Escrivá. The library also includes books by James Stenson and Jacques Philippe.

TAN Books currently has a small collection of e-books, which may be downloaded directly from their online store. TAN is best known for their books on the lives of the saints. TAN makes their e-books available in several formats.

As sales of e-books continue to outpace paper books, Catholic publishers are sure to continue to provide more titles. The trend seems to be to outsource e-books sales to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even iBooks on iTunes. The most common price mark for an average sized book is $9.99. Some of the smaller works are available for less.