Tuesday Tech Talk:Electronic Versions of the RSV-CE

Image by Eduardo Miranda

Too Many Translations
We recently had a Joe Catholic Workshop on the Catholic approach to reading Sacred Scripture and interpreting it in a way that follows the Church Magisterium. One of the challenges in conducting such a session is that people don't always show up with the same Bible translation.

Joe Catholic Bible
To eliminate that challenge, we have decided that the "official" Joe Catholic Bible will be the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition (RSV-CE), also known as the Ignatius Bible. Unless we indicate differently any passage quoted from Sacred Scripture on this site should be from the RSV-CE. This is also the Bible we will be referencing in all of our workshops and conferences.

Is it Available Electronically?
One of the questions that came up as a result of my recommendation that we all use the RSV-CE for all future Joe Catholic Workshops, was how to locate it electronically. I have a couple of app recommendations and a few online options, too. I am not going to do an in depth reviews of these apps, but instead will just share a little bit about them and where you can find them.

Truth and Life
You may be familiar with the Truth and Life (TL) audio version of the New Testament. You can find the CD's at Half Price Books regularly for $10. The audio Bible is also available from Audible, iTunes and GooglePlay. TL also has an app available on iTunes, GooglePlay and Kindle Fire. They have recently cooperated with Ignatius Press, Lighthouse Catholic Media and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology (Scott Hahn) to make the audio Bible and the Ignatius Press New Testament Study Bible available as in-app purchases. As far as I can tell all of these features are also available on the Lighthouse Catholic Media app, too. Both apps operate about the same.

Online Options
There a few places where you can find the RSV-CE online. Truth and Life has an online version that mimics the operation of its app. You can find that HERE. EWTN has a searchable version of the RSV-CE on its Devotionals page. Bible Gateway, not a Catholic entity, but nevertheless searchable and well laid out, is also available online.

Verbum Bible Software
One final way to access the RSV-CE is the Verbum Bible software system. The RSV-CE is one of the free Bibles available with the free app, which is available in iTunes and GooglePlay. Right now Verbum also has a sale for the Catechism and the Ignatius Study Bible. That bundle alone would be a great set of tools for your Spiritual Toolbox. I use Verbum daily in preparing materials for this blog and used it extensively in my graduate theology studies. Please mention Joe Catholic if you decide to make a purchase. We don't get a referral fee, but I would like them to know we are supporting their efforts. They came out to our Men's Conference last year and we hope to have them back.

Video: Joe Catholic Workshop Q & A
We included some additional resources on the board or during the discussion. Also note that we do NOT recommend the Kindle version of Ignatius Bible because it is not user friendly.

Navarre Bible Commentary:Online and Offline Options

Daily Word Reflections
Many of you may be familiar with +Mike Harrison's Daily Word reflections from the Navarre Bible. Mike recently sent out a message to all the members of the list:

Many of you will recall that I am fighting throat cancer, and at this point I'm in pretty bad shape from radiation treatment and its quite catastrophic side effects. As a result, this and all my other lists are behind. I'm afraid that posting will be spotty or may cease entirely if I have to be hospitalized.

Prayers
First, it goes without saying that we need to pray for Mike. He asked that we please not "offer to "help" getting the postings done; the logistics of that would be far more of a nightmare than I can handle right now." I recommend we ask St. Blaise, patron saint of throat ailments, for his intercession in asking our Lord for Mike's healing.

Group Archive
For those of you who would like to continue to incorporate the reflections as part of your daily prayer life, I have three recommendations. First, you can go to the Daily Word Google Group and run a search for the reading for that day. For example, Sunday I used "sixteenth Sunday in ordinary" as my search. Sometimes you might need to search using the actual scripture passage to find them. As far as I can tell all of the readings (3 year cycle) are archived on the group page.

In Conversation with God
The other option is to purchase Fernandez's In Conversation with God, available in 7 volumes. Fernandez uses most of the commentary in the Navarre and more. You can buy the individual volumes at a Catholic book store to save buying the whole set. I don't recommend the ebook version because the books are broken up into two parts each and makes it even more expensive.

Navarre Bible
The final option is to buy the Navarre Bible New Testament; it costs about $80, but it is a great investment. The Old Testament is sold in individual volumes and can be expensive. Right now there is no online version other than the Daily Word archive. You can run a Google search and preview much of it on Google Books too.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post in July, I began including the daily Gospel commentary on this site. Additionally, I have learned that Verbum Bible software, has a reasonably priced version of the New Testament commentary as one of their ala carte packages. They also carry the entire commentary (Old and New Testaments), but that price is similar to the cost of purchasing the full set in book form.

Evernote Clearly

De-clutters Webpages
Recently I have been using Evernote Clearly quite a bit for working on papers and research for blog posts. This extension for Evernote allows you to de-clutter a webpage you are reading. It removes the header and side panel and ads. You can also customize the text as you see fit. What I like most about this little app is that it allows me to "cut evidence" for articles, organize them and retrieve them later. You can do this by exporting the article to a notebook in Evernote.  I've recently incorporated using it for the WordCount Blogathon.

Research Tool
I use Clearly most often as I am reading other Catholic blogs or websites. After I have isolated the article, I can clip it to one of my notebooks in Evernote to read later. This gives me an opportunity to gather topical articles in one place so that I can read them more analytically. Additionally, it makes it easier for me to read them on my iPad. First, because I don't have to be online to read the article and secondly because the formatting is easier to read once it has been clipped.

Read Later
As I alluded to above, one other good use for Clearly is to use it to clip and save articles to read later. I have way too much content in my RSS feed to read at one time. Truthfully, I may not want to read all of it. Clearly allows me to isolate those I identify as worthy of reading later on my iPad. I do this especially when I am about to head out to the doctor's office or another appointment where I may have to wait. Again this is particularly useful, if you don't know if you are going to have wifi available.

Here's a video tutorial on how to use Evernote Clearly.

Cooperators of Opus Dei

From Opus Dei

St. Josemaria
You've probably noticed that I quote the writings of St. Josemaria quite often. This should have been a hint that I have some how been introduced to Opus Dei. For more on my encounter with St. Josemaria, I recommend reading my post entitled, My Life with the Saints. I hope to write a more detailed account on the feast day of St. Josemaria, June 26th.

Cooperators of Opus Dei
Despite those who say that Opus Dei is a secret society, the personal prelature has been very transparent in its use of social media. The main Opus Dei website already offers a great deal of resources about the role of the laity and answering the universal call to holiness. Recently, they added a new section devoted to Cooperators of Opus Dei. These are people, like me, who are not members of Opus Dei, but who participate in their formation activities (Evenings of Recollections, spiritual direction and retreats). We "cooperate" in the sense that we pray daily for the members of Opus Dei and we sometimes assist in various projects. For example, I have helped with a college prep program for high school boys. The new page contains a link to a new brochure explaining in greater detail who cooperators are and what they do. You can download the new brochure HERE.

What is Opus Dei?

Top 5 Catholic Apps

I normally write about Catholic technology and social media as part of my Tuesday Tech Talk series. Today is the first of several theme writing days for the WordCount Blogathon so I am giving snapshot reviews on the Top 5 Catholic Apps I use the most often.

St. Josemaria - So I will tell you up front that this app is priced at $14.99, but is worth every penny. For those of you who participate in the formation activities of Opus Dei, the application contains a reminder for Daily Norms with links to various prayers and devotions. The app also includes EVERY book written by St. Josemaria (worth far more than $15 if bought separately) and the New Testament. It also includes a built ability to add your own prayers or ebooks as PDF's. The app also includes information about Opus Dei and St. Josemaria.

iBreviary- this app is available for FREE on iTunes. iBreviary was developed by an Italian priest, Father +Paolo Padrini who is known to follow Joe Catholic on occasion and is a consultant to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The application essentially has three components: Liturgy of the Hours, the Daily Missal and the Catholic Prayers/Rituals. The application is available in five languages and several operating system platforms including Android, Blackberry and iOs (Apple). I most often use The Liturgy of the Hours also known as the Divine Office or Breviary. This is the "official prayer of the Church" (EWTN).  You have to sync the app daily or weekly to update the prayers.

iMissal - this app is the closest electronic version of the Roman Missal I have been able to find. It has all the Eucharistic Prayers, the Order of the Mass and all the readings. It lacks the ability to switch over to optional Feast Days, but often does provide choices for Holy Days of Obligation and Solemnities. The app has a Catholic news feed that links to Catholic News Agency. The designers of the app have added more prayers and an email subscription to get information about new developments in the app. Additionally, they have included the ability to purchase the Saint a Day app within iMissal.

Saint of the Day - this application was developed by American Catholic/St. Anthony Messenger. The material is derived from the book of the same name authored by Father Leonard Foley, OFM. The application is straight forward and allows you to search saints by name, cause and date. Additionally, the application has a short audio file link for each saint entry. There are also other features that connect the app to the American Catholic web with snippets.

 iPieta – Some of you may be familiar with the Pieta blue book that you see many people carrying with them, especially those who attend daily Mass. Like the paper version, iPieta contains a collection of traditional Catholic prayers, but this has much more than that. The application is organized into four categories: Bible, Calendar, Prayers and Veritas. I have written a more detailed review entitled iPieta: The Little Blue Book & More on Your Phone.

What are your favorite Catholic apps? Please write your answers in the Comments of Google+.

Feedly - the Heir to Google Reader

Google recently announced that it would shut down Google Reader effective July 1st. When I learned this last week, I wondered how I was going to keep track of all of my RSS feeds, especially all of the Catholic blogs I follow. Like others, I have relied on GR to help me skim, scan and sort my news feeds. (If you need a refresher on what I am talking about, review my tutorial post on RSS readers.)

The search for an adequate replacement app was quickly over. Many tech bloggers are calling the Feedly the heir to Google Reader,. According to TechCrunch, The Verge and CNET it is one of the closest apps to the reader. 3 million new subscribers in the last week can attest to that. According to TechCrunch, Feedly "became the No. 1 news app across all three top mobile platforms (iPhone, iPad and Android) this week." In response to all these new subscriptions, Feedly released a major upgrade to their app this morning. 

I like that it can be integrated to Chrome and automatically syncs and updates across devices. For a more detailed review of Feedly and their recent upgrades, I recommend Sarah Perez' article on TechCrunch.

Freedly is currently available in iOS and Android platforms and can be downloaded at the Apple iTunes Store and Google's Play. The app is currently FREE.

There's a Conclave App!

The folks who created Verbum have put together a nifty little app to follow the Conclave. The app is available in iOS (Apple) and Android platforms and it is FREE. You can download the app at the iTunes store or Google play.

The opening screen menu looks like this:

The app has five (5) pages of resources. Here is how the pages are organized:

• Live Video - The first contains live video from the Conclave. Right now the video that appears on the app is one from the last press conference. 
• News - This page includes links to a number of websites and news outlets like National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers and Zenit. I am a little disappointed that they felt the need to include the National Catholic Reporter. I suspect they included this source, which Fr. Z calls FishWrap, because of the great writing from John Allen. I only recommend reading Allen's articles on the NC Reporter.
• Twitter - tweets following #pope and #conclave. Be warned that you will have to sift through all sorts of stuff if you choose to follow the conclave this way.
• Bios - This contains bios on all the cardinals as ranked by NewAdvent. Their ranking is based on Google search activity, not on the likelihood of their election.
• Resources - This includes a number of documents related to papal selection and the conclave.

One final cool feature about the app site is that you can register to have an email sent to you to alert you the moment a new pope has been elected.

Tools for the Toolbox: Conclave Resources

As the Church gears up for the upcoming Conclave to elect a new pope, you might be asking yourself, "How do I find out more about papal conclaves?" I am debating on whether or not to devote a new page on this blog dedicated to all things related to the conclave. For the time being, I have gathered a number of sound resources for you to review and prepare yourself not only for the conclave, but for all the questions you are getting from co-workers, friends and family. These are all great opportunities for evangelization!

Electing the Pope

This new website is a collaboration of several Catholic bloggers, catechists and teachers and it seeks to be a meta site for explaining the conclave and related topics. Its contributors include the likes of Sarah Reinhard who writes the Snoring Scholar blog and is a regular contributor to the Catholic Mom. The  site includes information about the papacy, Catholic symbols and best of all, a Q & A section.

In the Light of the Law

If you are interested in a Canon Law perspective, you need not go any further than Dr. Edward Peters' blog, In the Light of the Law. Dr. Peters is a canon lawyer and has written several books on Canon Law including OSV's 100 Questions About Annulments.

EWTN - The See of Peter

You can never go wrong with EWTN as one of the resources you regularly check for anything Catholic. They have put together a number of resources on a new page entitled The See of Peter. The page includes a number of links including overviews on the papacy and the college of cardinals. The page also includes links to several of the documents governing the election of a new pope.

National Catholic Register

If you are looking for a resource to follow news about the Catholic Church, you needn't go further than the National Catholic Register.  The NCR provides comprehensive and orthodox reporting on the Catholic Church. You will find well written articles, radio broadcasts and blog posts on their site.

Pope Names Book, Jimmy Akin

Jimmy Akin, who is a senior apologist for Catholic Answers, has written an ebook entitled Pope Names. In the book he explores the history of papal names, how name have chosen and he even explores the statistical probability of the name choice for the next pope.

The Pope App

As we count the hours to the end of Pope Benedict's pontificate and await the beginning of the Conclave, we might want an easy way to keep up with all things from the Vatican. The Pope App is the perfect way to accomplish this.

After initially opening the app to the title page, the screen opens to an image which lets you know when you can follow the pope live. For example in this image taken a few minutes ago, we can see it will be 3 hours until the pope can be seen live.

The Pope App is organized into 9 different screens. These include the ability to view LIVE feeds, check a calendar of upcoming EVENTS, read messages From the Pope, see NEWS, view IMAGES, archived VIDEOS, and WEBCAMS from the Vatican. The app even includes a page dedicated to all things VATICANO.

The LIVE feed not only shows the events that are upcoming, but also allow you to set reminder alarms to check in. This will come in handy once the Conclave begins.

The NEWS feed captures articles on the pope and his messages. They come from a variety of sources including Vatican Radio and L'Osservatore Romano.

The Vaticano page links to several media outlets from the Vatican including the Pope's twitter feed that will continue to be active assuming the new pope chooses to tweet.

The Pope App is powered by the official Vatican Media and is currently only available in iOS format (Apple products). The app is FREE.

10 Apps for Lent

(Note: These are NOT the apps in the video)

Normally I would save this type of post for Tuesday Tech Talk, but since we are already in the second week of Lent, I thought I would post it today. Technology, properly ordered, can be a useful tool that can help you enhance your Lenten season. Here is a video from Catholic@pps highlighting 10 apps that can aid you this Lenten season. (They review each of these apps in greater detail on their site.) Maybe you just haven't been able to find a way to get into the swing of things this Lent. Here is my list of resources from last year.

Here is a listing of the apps as they appear in the video:

• My Year of Faith
• Catholic Sermon
• The Pope App
• Steubenville
• Fighter Verse
• Mea Culpa
• Catholic Meditations for Lent by Thomas Aquinas
• John Paul II (eVotions)
• Lighthouse Catholic Media Bible (Promo Code: 102318)
• Magnificat Lent Companion

EWTN & the Internet

EWTN is consistently on the cutting edge of technology, making use of online video streaming and even archiving their major programing onto Mp3 downloads and podcasts. Their website contains a bountiful collection of print and audio resources in their libraries. They even allow you to stream their shows on mobile devices and have recently been added to iHeart Radio.

Today they released a video that gives great insight into the use of the Internet.

Food & Faith:Grace Before Meals

One of the things I have learned in my work with the men of Joe Catholic is that many of them like to cook. In fact, some of them are the primary cooks in their homes. I happened to be listening to Teresa Tomeo's radio show this morning and heard her interviewing Father Leo Patalinghug who hosts a show on EWTN called Savoring Our Faith and a website called Grace Before Meals.

Father Leo describes the mission of this "movement" of meals as follows:

Grace Before Meals is a movement to bring families back to the dinner table- away from work, school, TV, games, and the many other things we get caught up in- to share a delicious meal together, communicate and love one another and be nourished- body, mind, and soul. How? With easy lessons, tasty recipes and reasons to come together and share in the love that only a family or friend can provide.

This inspired me last night. Stacey had to work and I had the day off so I volunteered to cook dinner. Stacey had placed some tilapia in the fridge to defrost. I wasn't in the mood to grill up the fillets. Instead, I made some fish tacos. Stacey joined me in the kitchen, chopping up the lettuce and avocado wedges. We had a good time working together and talking. Fr. Leo's recipes and videos would be a great resource to think of some ideas for cooking together with your wife or your entire family.

Here's an example of one of his recipes in action:

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:Catholics Come Home

Today's Gospel recounts Christ's parable of the lost sheep. In the reading taken from Matt 18:12-14, Christ says:

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost."

I am reminded of a sermon in which the priest explained that all of Heaven rejoices at the return of one soul to the bossom of our Lord. This time of year, many people (for whatever reason) who normally stay away from church, return for Christmas. We may refer to them pejoratively, as chreasters or C & E Catholics, but we should be careful of looking down on them, for something still stirs within their hearts that they come to worship on these holy days.

Michael Hoffman, who emceed our first men's conference, recently gave a presentation explaining the New Evagelization. One key point he expressed in re-evangelizing those who have left the Church is that we have to make sure that what they are coming back to is a welcoming home. One organization that has done a remarkable job of getting the word out that the Church has her arms open to receiving back her children is the Catholic Comes Home network.

Tuesday Tech Talk: Magnifcat Advent App

One of the recommendations I made in our Advent overview was mixing up your meditation material. Magnificat, know for their daily reading booklets, has designed an Advent Companion app that is available on most platforms for ¢99, including Apple and Kindle.

The app contains a few articles about Advent, but the core of its content is the meditation that goes with each daily reading during Advent. These reflections are brief enough to incorporate into your daily prayer routine and they are often related to every day life. Additionally, the Advent Companion contains Advent Stations, Advent Prayers and a guide for Advent Evenings of Reconciliation. Priced at ¢99, the Magnificat Advent Companion is a great addition to your meditation material.

Tuesday Tech Talk:Catholic Voting Guide App

This past week the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (CCC) published a Catholic Voting Guide application that works on most smartphone platforms – Android, Apple and Windows. The app is FREE, non-partisan and written concisely so it can be easily read in preparation for voting. So you have some idea who the CCC is, its president is Father John Trigilio, co-author of Catholicism for Dummies.  Father Trigilio appears regularly on Catholic Answers Live and is the long-time host of Web of Faith on EWTN. You can see an interview with Father Trigilio explaining the app on World Over Live HERE.

The app is organized into Six Vital Issues including Right to Life, Freedom of Religion, Sanctity of Marriage, Right to Own Private Property, Right to Access to Goods and War & Peace. The app is rooted in the teaching of the US Bishop's Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship and Cardinal Prefect, Josef Ratzinger's (now Pope Benedict) Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion.

For a more comprehensive review check out the one on CatholicMom. For a more complete explanation of the vital issues and how we are called to inform our decisions through our Catholic faith please view the interview with Cardinal Burke:

Tuesday Tech Talk: Free Audio Rosaries

During the men's conference this weekend, we had an unexpected, prolonged break because the lines for confession were so long. What a great problem to have! I filled some of the time by talking about the Rosary as a powerful spiritual weapon and how so many of the saints incorporated this popular devotion in their daily prayer lives.

I struggle to find the time in the morning to pray the rosary and when I get home I am often too tired to remember anything other than getting ready for the next day. What I have found most helpful is praying the rosary during my morning commute to work. I have downloaded an audio version of the rosary on to my iPhone and play/pray it on way to work. I not only get to pray the rosary, but I lower my blood pressure and reduce the likelihood of road rage during those rough mornings of traffic. Praying the rosary this way takes about 15-20 minutes. It's OK if you have to split the prayer up between your morning and afternoon commutes if you don't have a long one. This is also a good way to pray the rosary as you work out or go for a morning walk.

Here are two free or inexpensive ways to download an mp3 version of the rosary or to obtain one on CD.

Rosary Army - mp3 files in English, Spanish and Dutch

CatholiCity - Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet on CD ($1 donation suggested); available as download too

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.

Tuesday Tech Talk: More Free Stuff!

I posted links to three ways to get a free Brown Scapular. That was such a popular post, I thought I would follow up with another day of freebies in today's Tuesday Tech Talk.

Free for Catholics is a site dedicated to gathering all sorts of free offers of Catholic interest. It includes everything from free apps to sacramentals and voters' guides. Some of the freebies are trial subscriptions to Catholic magazines. Others include religious medals and even MP3 downloads of Venerable Fulton Sheen's talks.

One caveat – when you order from some of the ministries you may wind up on a mailing list. Of course that just means you'll receive more free stuff in the mail in return for your prayers and a small donation.