Each of these organizations offer different strengths to the prolife movement, their main goals being education, awareness and advocacy. Through my work with these amazing organizations, I have become much more informed of the prolife movement in Canada and abroad. Still, to be perfectly honest I find it difficult to be public with any of my prolife views, for fear of offending someone or being seen as insensitive to women.
I would much rather have a one on one conversation with someone and to pray for a change of hearts and minds. This is where the 9Days for Life app (Android)comes in.
The 9Days for Life app (iTunes and Android), gives a new opportunity for myself and for everyone to get involved in this essential movement; and the App is available for both Android and Apple users. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), based in Washington, D.C. has worked hard to provide an app with opportunities to share the prolife message in varying levels – depending on your own level of comfort in being a prolife advocate. It recognizes that we all have a role to play in standing up for life, but these roles are different for different people. Together we can make a stand, however loud or quiet it may be, and make a difference in promoting life in “a culture of death.”
Prayer for the prolife movement is essential, and the USCCB has given that important role a central position in this app. The 9Days for Life app essentially helps you to pray through nine days (A novena) of prayer for life issues (abortion and euthanasia, and other prolife topics). The app uses quick, simple suggestions to put your faith into motion, increase your prayer, learn about important life issues, and share the joy of the gospel with daily reflections.
If you are comfortable taking your advocacy one step further, this prolife app connects you with the USCCB website and provides you with social media images to share on your various social accounts, like facebook, or twitter. The app doesn’t force you in any way to share that you are connected with the app, and it also does not send a message that you must share prolife images in order to be prolife. It just offers these opportunities to go a little further if you are so inclined.
Each of the nine days that you take part in has five steps (screens) that walk with you through this easy to use app. These screens include:
Intercession
This is a simple and concise summary of what you will be praying for and what the other parts of today’s prayer will focus on.
The calendar is very easy to navigate, nine simple days.
Prayers
These prayers are written out so that anyone can pray along, even if they are new to standard prayers. I love when developers take this into account. The Our Father, Hail Mary and glory be are included here.
It wouldn’t be a novena app if it didn’t contain the prayers for the novena.
Reflection
A short feature article on one or two aspects of the prolife movement, the Gospels, or encouragement in building the prolife movement.
Words from the bible, or quotes from people of influence.
Acts of Reparation
This area offers you a few opportunities to actually do (kind of like the DoCat App) such as make penance for others, further the message of life, or contribute to building a new culture of life in your circle of influence.
Acts of Reparation for the prolife movement, the app gives you suggestions and options to add your voice to the prolife movement.
Each of these areas offer a simple next button at the bottom to bring you to the next screen.
At the top right of the app there is a slide in menu, and you can find some sharable images. This is a great way to share the message and the gospel of life. As I mentioned earlier, you can share this to Facebook, twitter, instagram, and email.
This prolife app features a daily reminder than can be set within the app.
The 9Days app (Google Play)has actually been around for a while, but it has been updated for 2017 and the changes make this an easy to use and appealing app. As we mark the 44th anniversary of the Supreme court decision that made abortion legal in the United States, I hope that we can all make a commitment to advocate for life in whatever way we can. Maybe we can even challenge ourselves to step a bit further out of our comfort zones to speak “LIFE” in new ways. I think this app will help us do just that.
www.usccb.org/respectlife
CatholicApps.com has another popular novena app reviewed here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
