I have been using my iphone as my missal and breviary for some time now. I have the following all installed on my phone:
– iMissal
– Magnificat
– Divine Office
– iBreviary
– iMass
– AND Universalis
In the past, to get the whole mass – including the Ordinary and the Propers and the Lectionary – I had to use a combination of these apps. But thanks to the latest update on Universalis, it is now all in one place.
The new “Mass Today” option integrates the readings for the day (JB version, as for the current Australian lectionary with Grail psalms, and with the option of the Gospel in parallel Greek) with the ordinary of the mass AND now the proper collects, prayers and antiphons. At the preface and the Eucharistic Prayer, you are offered the choice of those which are allowable options for the day.
Thus everything that one could want in a printed missal is available in a single app on a single page. The only remaining problem is that the response to the Psalm and the Gospel Acclamation are not the same version as used in Australia.
On top of that, you get all the hours of the daily office provided.
Universalis isn’t cheap, but it is clearly now the best missal/breviary app for the English Roman Missal. I still use Divine Office when I want the audio of the Liturgy of the Hours, iMass when I want the Extraordinary Form (which does the same thing for the EF as Universalis does for the OF), iBreviary when I want the Latin of the Novus Ordo (includes propers but not readings) and Magnificat if I want the additionaly devotional materials, but I am deleting iMissal as redundant.
Just started playing with the update this morning… I have a question about how you deal with potential distraction on your iPhone. Do you disable network access, or just have a lot more mental discipline than I do?
I find that just looking at my phone in church distracts me because I remember email conversations, events on fb, messages to return etc, so I’m interested in how you detach from that, as I’d like to be able to use Universalis more in mass.
I am a language, Latin, liturgy and lectionary fanatic, so for me the distraction drives me deeper into the text of the mass. But I will admit to texting Father during mass last Saturday night – to tell him off for fiddling with the texts of the new prayers! That was a bit distracting, I admit…
An occasion of sin, perhaps? ;-)