Saturday, December 27, 2008

Feast of St. John Apostle and Evangelist

Today is the Feast of St. John, a day for priests, just as St. Stephen's is a feast for deacons. I am thankful for all the priests I know and I have the privilege of knowing quite a few. God is good and Christmas is a grand season.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The violence unleashed today in Gaza by Israel is in retaliation for the continued rocket attacks into Israel. Gaza, which is geographically separated from the West bank, is controlled by Hamas, not by the more moderate Palestinian Authority, with whom Israel has been in negotiations. It is odd that just a few days ago Israel opened the border crossings into Gaza at the request of U.N. envoy Tony Blair. This seemed a step in the right direction.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to offer this story on my application that brings the prayer on iPhone.
    I believe that prayer is Christian and Catholic from spreading. You wonder why you can publish the news and if you can spread it to your friends on the blog.

    thanks

    fr. Paolo Padrini

    Sacred texts: Vatican embraces iTunes prayer book
    5 days ago
    VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican is endorsing new technology that brings the book of daily prayers used by priests straight onto iPhones.
    The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications is embracing the iBreviary, an iTunes application created by a technologically savvy Italian priest, the Rev. Paolo Padrini, and an Italian Web designer.
    The application includes the Breviary prayer book — in Italian, English, Spanish, French and Latin and, in the near future, Portuguese and German. Another section includes the prayers of the daily Mass, and a third contains various other prayers.
    After a free trial period in which the iBreviary was downloaded approximately 10,000 times in Italy, an official version was released earlier this month, Padrini said.
    The application costs euro0.79 ($1.10), while upgrades will be free. Padrini's proceeds are going to charity.
    Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, praised the new application Monday, saying the Church "is learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a mean of evangelizing, as a way of being able to share its own message with the world."
    Pope Benedict XVI, a classical music lover who was reportedly given an iPod in 2006, has sought to reach out to young people through new media. During last summer's World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, he sent out mobile phone text messages citing scripture to thousands of registered pilgrims — signed with the tagline "BXVI."

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is a wonderful development. It is Providential that you should post this today, just last night our parochial vicar was telling me that he downloaded it and now uses it as his breviary.

    ReplyDelete

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