A Minute of Prayer

A Minute of Prayer is about as simple as an app gets. It holds seven short prayers, and the idea is that you spend a minute with one of them each day.

The seven cover common needs, prayers for serenity, strength, patience, and discipline, and prayers against anger, envy, and laziness. You open the app, read the one for the day, and that is it. It picks a photo backdrop to go with the prayer, and changes it depending on whether it is day or night. Give the phone a shake and you can see the full photo behind the words.

I will be honest about what this is. It is a small, gentle nudge to stop and pray for a moment in a busy day, and on that level it does the job. Taking sixty seconds to actually say a prayer instead of scrolling is a good habit, and the app makes that easy.

Good for someone who keeps meaning to pray but never quite stops to do it, and for anyone who wants a low-effort reminder during the workday.

A few caveats worth saying plainly. The seven prayers are general Christian prayers rather than anything distinctly Catholic, no saints, no Marian devotion, no sacramental angle, so it will not deepen specifically Catholic practice. There are only seven of them, so it gets repetitive. And it has not been updated in years, so it is showing its age.

Free, from developer Maria Chua. Available on the App Store: A Minute of Prayer. A tiny, harmless prayer prompt, best as a starter habit rather than a main prayer app.