Catena: Bible & Commentaries

Catena is a Bible app built around one idea. When you read a verse, you also get to read what the early Church Fathers wrote about it. That is the whole thing, and it does it well.

You open to a passage and tap a verse. Underneath, you get commentary from early Christian writers, the people who taught and defended the faith in its first centuries. You read the verse, then you read how the early Church understood it, and you can keep going straight down the chapter the same way. The text is clean and the commentary sits right where you need it, so there is no jumping back and forth between books or windows.

This kind of thing steadies you. It is easy to read Scripture and quietly assume your own take is the obvious one. Sitting with the Fathers reminds you that the Church has been praying over these same words for a very long time, and that you are joining a conversation rather than starting one. More than once I have read a familiar verse, then read a line from one of the Fathers, and seen something in it I had walked past for years.

It is a good fit for anyone who wants more than a plain reading: people in a Bible study, those going through RCIA, or anyone curious how the early Church read a given passage. It also works as a quiet way to pray with Scripture, a verse and a comment at a time.

A word on background. Catena comes out of the Eastern Christian tradition, and what you get is patristic commentary, not a set of modern Catholic study notes. For a Catholic that is no trouble, since the Fathers are our common inheritance, but do not expect Catechism references or footnotes tied to current Catholic teaching. It is the Fathers, plainly presented.

Free, made by David Salib. Available on the App Store: Catena: Bible & Commentaries. If you want to read Scripture alongside the early Church, this is a rich and easy place to start.