I have prayed the Divine Office for many years. While, I admit, I haven’t always been consistent in praying it daily, and I was never sure I had the ribbons placed correctly, it has helped me grow so much closer to Our Lord. When I discovered this app, all of my concerns of ribbon placement were gone. Having the Divine Office on my phone is absolutely the best thing ever! The sense of community is so wonderful as I see how many others are praying at the same time as myself. When I rise in the early morning, it’s still dark. Praying in the dark helps me feel the presence of the Lord and keeps distractions to a minimum. Now I don’t need to turn a lamp on as I use to when I used the Office printed volumes. It is such a blessing to have the Divine Office in my pocket. Many times I’ve been sitting in a doctor’s waiting room at the time of Mid Morning prayer. It is so calming of any worries to pull out my phone, open the app, and be able to connect with Our Lord at those times I need Him most. I don’t use the audio version much but the few times I’ve traveled, it is so comforting to not have to skip the Office in order to keep my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes in the road. I recommend this app to friends all the time, especially to those who’d like to pray the Office but feel intimidated by the size of the printed version and getting the ribbons placed properly. Thank you for developing this app. It is my constant companion.

A mustard seed. When the chaos in your life grows so loud…..SOOOOOOOOO LOUD, that a tiny whisper, a silent plea for help is offered. This is the sacrifice your Lord yearns for. When you’ve been beaten time and time again and it finally hits you…”I can’t fight this fight alone”. THAT. IS. WHEN. THE. ALMIGHTY. ENTERS. THE. RING. My Brothers and Sisters, it’s that silent whisper that rings loudest. That silent whisper lights the fire of GOD within. That silent whisper lets your Abba tend to the seed. That silent whisper lets your Heavenly Father become your mentor and HE shows you all of the Gifts he Gifted you. I BEG YOU. Pray these Prayers. Just read them in a private setting. I promise you, your Heavenly Father with Pray with you and before long, you will learn to say EACH word within, with such passion and conviction that tears will run down your cheek. Our Daddy will show each of us the beautiful gift of Love that is the source of the light that is God. My Friends, there is such great power in weakness; for when your Christ dwells within, you are Gifted the greatest POWER in the Universe. The power of THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END. let your father give YOU rest. Unburden yourselves. Salvation is but a prayer away.

Overall, this app is very useful. First, it’s more intuitive than iBreviary and it doesn’t have the mistakes that the other one has. There isn’t as much scrolling through options here, for example. The audio is a useful tool since I travel a lot and would miss Hours without it. However, as useful as it is, I find the reading to be a little distracting in all honesty. It seems a little…exaggerated to me, almost like it’s trying to be emotional. For someone like me who normally prays the breviary in common this is very distracting. The hymn choice I feel could also be improved to match the actual breviary. This would make it easier for a mixed group of people praying with the book or this app. Besides, I’ve never heard any of these hymns so I don’t know them anyway. But, there’s no accounting for taste. Some folks like the reading and others like the hymns. Just my thoughts. The main improvement I see is for the Daytime Hours. Terce, Sext, and None all use the Complementary Psalmody instead of the Current one for the day. It would be very helpful to those of us who need to pray the Hours (clergy, religious, seminarians) if the Current Psalmody was included for at least one of the daytime hours. This is one thing that iBreviary does better. As it stands now, Daytime Prayer ends up being the exact same set of psalms every day.

I do like this app. I have others and generally find this one easier to use. You can clearly see which prayers to pray at which time. I like checking off what I’ve done and having daytime reminders to pray each part throughout the day. The only thing I dislike is the inconsistency of the audio praying. Most of the people praying are great. They read as in common prayer allowing me to focus on praying with them. Unfortunately there are two or three that are reading in an overly affected manner. They are breathy and add a lot of pauses that are not indicated in the punctuation of the text. This dramatic reading makes it impossible to join with them and also infers interpretation that should not be a part of common prayer. I now have to turn off the audio if they are leading the day’s prayers which is unfortunate. Als, I usually like the hymns but some of the choices are artistic versions or simply, newer songs rather than hymns, so the user of the app can only listen but not join in for prayer. I am not looking for an entertaining app but one that assists me in prayer so again, I turn off the audio when the songs play and don’t allow my participation. Since these issues are inconsistent in the app it doesn’t make the app useless, just harder to maintain the same method day to day. But if someone isn’t interested in the audio portion, this is a perfect app.