Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers advises a caller on how to enrich his prayer life with technology, and explains how he has made the most of it with such resources as the iBreviary and Laudete apps.
Transcript:
Host: We go now to Dan in Portland, Oregon listening on Mater Dei Radio. Dan, you are on with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers.
Caller: Hi, thank you for taking my call. Thank you to Catholic Answers and Deacon Harold, it’s great to have you on there.
Dn. Harold: Thank you, I’m glad to be here.
Caller: So for dryness and prayer, I’ve found that it’s an opportunity and a calling to to do what Steve says is going deeper, trying to maybe think about some things I haven’t been thinking about, because I fall into the rut of doing the same thing over again, you know, with prayer, like a lot of people do. I wonder if you could speak to that about the idea of going deeper, maybe talking some things over with the Lord that, you know, we might be avoiding, kind of, and maybe not even aware of it, and experiencing a breakthrough that way. And also the use of technology, I’ve been finding it really helpful to have an arsenal of prayer, prayer devices and tools and ideas and, you know, ways of praying, and if you could speak a little bit about tradition in the Church of utilizing, you know, books and television now all the technologies, kind of…I don’t know if sanctifying the the technology, I don’t know if that’s the right way to describing it but…
Dn. Harold: Yeah, let me put it this way. I do use the technology on my phone. For example, I travel a hundred fifty thousand miles a year and often I’m traveling between liturgical seasons, and I pray the full Liturgy of the Hours every day, okay, so on my on my phone I have apps. For example I use the iBreviary, you know, so instead of bringing the four-volume set with me when I’m on the road, I could just go to iBreviary and use that. I also use the Laudete app and I use that ’cause there’s a gazillion prayers on here, but some of them I actually bookmark. So I have bookmarked Adoration, Chapel of Divine Mercy, Consecration to Mary, Litany to Saint Joseph, Litany of the Precious Blood, St. Benedict, St. Joseph’s prayer, and I use these prayers on a daily basis, and rotate them around, so that, you know, every day I have a different prayer and actually there’s a billion prayers on here.
And so you find your favorite ones and you just use those as part of your regular prayer. I think that will help to deepen your prayer life, when you start to add your life and your experiences into your prayer so you’re not just saying words, but you’re actually reflecting on your life, reflecting on where you are in your relationship with God, and that prayer is aiding and lifting up your heart so that it could be actually closer and more intimate to God’s heart, because when your will and God’s will are in communion then you’re truly free to be the person he created you to be. But prayer is the way to get there.
And so I think, yes, using technology could be a great way of deepening your prayer life. But I would say the easiest thing to do, or the best thing to do, would be just to just to start praying, to pray through those difficult times, to go to–again, go to confession regularly to just remove anything that might be blocking you from experiencing a full depth of God’s Grace in your life.
Host: Thank you very much, Dan.