a message from the pastor
We are blessed to have so many resources available to us to help us in our daily prayers and devotions. I know that many of you use the little books, “Christ in Our Home” that we make available. Some of you may also use other books and devotionals, including missals and breviaries, to guide your prayers and help you focus your heart and soul for the day ahead of you.
Recently, I’ve come across a new resource, which I would like to commend to you. It is a podcast entitled “Pray-As-You-Go,” produced by the Jesuit Media Initiatives in Britain. If you have not yet had experience with them, a podcast is an audio file you can download and play on your computer or IPod. Each daily devotional, which is 10 – 13 minutes long, includes a hymn, a reading from the Bible, questions that invite you to reflect on portions of the day’s reading and what you find God saying to you in the reading. Each program concludes with a prayer and the Gloria Patri (Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit …). I’ve found this to be a great program because it invites you to think about the Bible reading and to ask yourself how you see Jesus working in your life that day, how you hear him speaking to you.
Are you interested? Good! Here’s how you access this program. You need to have ITunes on your computer. Apple makes a copy of this program for Macs as well as Windows machines. Go to apple.com and find the IPod+ITunes tab. Click on this tab and find the Latest in ITunes tab on the right of the screen and download a copy of ITunes (this is a free program).
When you open ITunes on your computer, go to the ITunes Store. On the left, there is a box with ITunes Store as the title. Click on Podcasts. On the left in Podcasts, find the category of Religion & Spirituality. Click on this category. Under Featured, in the center of your screen you should see the picture for the program “Pray-As-You-Go.” (If you don’t see the program, you can type the title into the search box, or look under the Spirituality program box.)
When you click on the program picture, you will be taken to the programs. You can subscribe to the podcast, which will automatically load the each day’s programs onto your computer each week, or you can download each day individually. Please note that the podcasts are free. After this, you can listen on your computer or load onto your IPod if you have one.
Give it a try and see what you think. If you try this form of devotion, let me know what you think about it and how it works for you. If you have any questions about how to get the program, let me know.
Peace,
Pastor Gary Erdos
Please feel free to email me or call the church office [(757) 898-4395], if you have any questions