The App itself contains a complete Roman Catholic Missal, complete with all the readings for each day of the year (see note below) and the order of the Mass, as well as a comprehensive Catholic Prayer book and a daily scripture verse generator (Our Daily Bread).
The Liturgical Calendar displays all of the liturgical seasons and is colour coded based on liturgical season.
It shows Holy Days of Obligation, Solemnities, Major Feasts, Saints, etc. The calendar is currently available for years 1990 – 2050!
I’ve been using the iMissal (a screenshot is pictured at right) for a little over a year now and have found it to be particularly useful in a number of contexts: from reminding me to do a little pre-reading before going to Mass, to simply being able to find the right prayer at the right time.
Of the Catholic Apps available on the iPhone I intend to start this series with the one I use the most.
The iMissal costs $5.99 from the App store, which really is a bargain, especially when you consider that you can pay upwards of $60 for a regular weekday Missal.
I do however wonder what people are going to think when I pull out my iPhone in Mass? They’ll probably think I’m texting or emailing while I should be praying…
Just a brief note of caution: the liturgical texts provided in iMissal are used with the permission of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and the International Committee on English in the Liturgy. They are the official texts approved for use in the dioceses of the United States by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops so sometimes you may find that there are occasional differences between what is on the app and what is read during Mass here in Australia.