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jacfalle20

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Is it disrespectful to use my phone during mass? Let me explain. I have an app on my cell phone called “Laudate”. It is an app for Catholics containing prayers, the daily readings and missal changes (which I still need after years of responding in the previous manner), instructions and guidelines for confession, etc. Is using this app on my phone during mass okay? My church is routinely filled, there’s only so many missals that can go around.
 
I also have a similar app on my phone. My experience is that people don’t know what you are doing with your phone and it can too easily be misinterpreted. I don’t want to cause problems for other people.

I use my app for private prayer before Mass and to review the readings. When Mass starts I put my phone away.
 
As an alternative, consider getting a subscription to Magnificat for the Ordinary Form of the Mass, which includes all the daily readings and, I believe, at least some of the Liturgy of the Hours, for each month.
 
My take on this…

It will raise a few eyebrows right now. But using apps on your smartphone for prayer and liturgy purposes is becoming so common that those eyebrows are likely to be for people thinking, “How cool!!!”

My suggestion? Try and look like you are using your phone for the response parts of the Mass and then set it down. People will figure out what you are doing pretty quickly.
 
during Mass itself, I’ve only used my iPod only once when I found myself at a parish that didn’t use missalettes. otherwise, it’s great not to carry my LotH books to work and then to the church afterwards for a Holy Hour.

Divine Office - Liturgy of the Hours
iMissal - complete Mass in either English or Latin
iRosary - (don’t use this too often in Church or Adoration Chapel)
iPieta - most complete library of prayers and classical spiritual works
Total Consecration (preparation) by St. Louis de Montfort

I try to be circumspect and hold it rather close. All volume settings are either off or set to the lowest.
 
Using an iPhone or iPad is all right, but it can be very distracting to many people. My pastor uses his iPhone for prayers during times when there are few people and he can be unnoticed, but he never takes it out if it could be distracting.

If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d go for a black and white tablet or kindle. It is obviously not texting, watching a video, or anything like that, and when a person sees it they are quick to notice what you are doing and slow to make assumptions.

Just my two cents.
 
While I am a “books” kind of guy, I can see this being the norm in the future especially as our youth continue on with this technology. I still have my missal but I also have all the apps on my phone and wondered about what people might think if I used it. Pretty soon this will not be a question but the norm…🙂
 
teachccd said:
While I am a “books” kind of guy, I can see this being the norm in the future especially as our youth continue on with this technology. I still have my missal but I also have all the apps on my phone and wondered about what people might think if I used it. Pretty soon this will not be a question but the norm…🙂
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I read a blog post a while back that made this assertion. I think it was correct. Just as printed materials overtook handwritten ones for use during Mass, so too electronics will one day overtake (although I doubt completely get rid of) the printed book in Mass. A book will still probably be used on the altar, but I can seriously see, in 20-30 years, cheap knock-off ipads replacing the missalettes in the pew (when ipads become inexpensive, like most electronics eventually do). I think this would be a good innovation into the Church, as it would allow for many more uses than a single missalette can have. For example, you could send the hymn words straight to the tablet. You could have access to the Divine Office on the tablet, thus allowing anyone who wanted to to say the office. You could easily restrict use of the tablet to only those apps that are downloaded on it (i.e., they are unable to get onto the internet), and have a ton of apps for everything from prayer to saints to the missal to spiritual works to the Divine Office to the Catechism.
 
I know an 84 year old guy who reads the readings off of his smart phone and the LOTH. God bless him. Nobody is thinking he’s playing Angry Birds.
 
What if you got one of those leather phone cases that opens up like a book? It might make the phone a little less conspicuous and just look like a small prayer book.
 
I wouldn’t see what the big deal would be, espcially if there were nothing else available. I have the same app on my phone as well. That said, i’m sure some tradionalists wouldn’t like it.
 
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