Feast days honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary are celebrated in some form each month of the year in the Roman Catholic calendar. We begin January 1 with the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. So, let’s look at three great Marian apps out there that can help you to foster a deeper devotion to Our Lady who is the most perfect guide leading you to know Jesus Christ.
[Photo: The Smiling Virgin in the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo, Spain]
Totally Yours (Free) iOS and Android –Want to take your prayer life and your relationship with the Lord to a whole new level? How about going on a serious, classic journey of preparing your heart for Jesus through Mary? This app walks you through a 33-day retreat based on St. Louis de Montfort’s Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a devotion that was particularly meaningful in the life of St. Pope John Paul II. Developers explain that participating in the full retreat helps lead you to know Jesus Christ more fully.
Participants “experience the joy of having a heavenly Mother on their side, who draws each one ever so gently, as only a mother can, to her beloved son, Jesus.This retreat when taken seriously draws the believer one step closer to the Mother and thereby one step closer to Jesus.” This is a time-honored retreat that takes a lot of self-discipline and reflection. It is difficult for many people to follow the daily course in their busy lives. This app breaks the process down for you in four parts on a set calendar so you can easily track your progress through the full 33-day journey. You will appreciate the journal tab to jot down your reflections. Even if you don’t want to participate in the full 33-day retreat, you can certainly benefit from the instruction, prayers and reflections offered in this app, a wonderful addition to your mobile device.
Mary App (Free) iOS The Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception who brought you the Divine Mercy app have produced a full-resource Marian app that is one of the best in the marketplace. Our Blessed Mother is a big topic, so developers broke the subject of Our Lady into three categories: Doctrine(Church/Scriptural teachings about her and reasons for our devotion with FAQs); Devotion (including various prayers – audio rosary included- and feast days etc); and Mary Plus (images, pilgrimage sites, apparitions, etc.). As one reviewer put it, this app is really three great apps rolled into one. Why are apps like this important to have on your device? As the Fathers state on their web site: Mary’s whole task is to lead us closer to Jesus. The more we get to know her and have a fervent devotion to her, the better she can lead us to her Son. For this reason, the Second Vatican Council states, “Everyone should have a genuine devotion to [Mary] and entrust his life to her motherly care.”
It is painful to see that this only comes in iOS platform. Because the developers eventually created an Android version of their popular Divine Mercy app, it is assumed they will do the same for their Mary app. We pray.
Our Sunday Visitor followed up their popular 365 days of Mercy app (designed for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy) with 365 Days With Mary . This free Marian app is designed to bring you closer to Jesus through Mary by fostering the habit/practice of daily devotion to her.
365 Days With Mary app was developed as a valuable resource for the 100th anniversary celebration of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima which occurred in 1917. This app comes to you fully loaded with a variety of Marian resources–text, video and audio! You get a rosary guide (English and Spanish); Divine Mercy Chaplet guide; daily Marian reflections; Stations of the Cross reflections (audio option); popular Catholic prayers; Works of Mercy listing; the Pope’s prayer intentions (video included); information on Our Lady and more. You may set up reminders (phone/tablet alerts) to help you remember to pray daily. Take a test drive of this app here.
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