Website Wednesday: Pray.nd.edu

This is how it looks

Continuing our series of looking at websites on Wednesday, we turn our gaze to a website focused on praying through the daily mass readings: Pray.nd.edu.  Run by the University of Notre Dame, my alma mater, "Pray" includes different content every day, centered around the Gospel for that particular day.  Each day, you find the text for the Gospel, a brief reflection written by someone connected to the University, and a prayer.

One of the strengths of this website is the sheer number of contributors.  Tapping into the vast resource of Notre Dame students, alums, and friends, Pray has featured past Notre Dame football stars, current students, priests and religious, and of course alumni.  Hearing from many different individuals keeps the site fresh.  There are "as many ways [to God] as there are people," as Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) once said.  The different perspectives allow us to see God with new eyes.

Let's take a look at a few of the other parts of the site.

Seasonal Sections
During Advent and Lent, "Pray" features videos for each week of the season.  Each video includes a well thought out, well delivered ~5 minute reflection on a particular aspect that shines forth in that week's mass readings.  I particularly enjoyed the one for the 2nd week of Advent:


Free Online Prayer Cards
Ever hit a patch where you don't know how you want to pray, don't feel like you have time to pray, and need to pray something short and meaningful?  So do I.  The prayer card section on the Pray website is an incredible resource for people in that spot.  Each prayer card is a PDF that can be printed out, cut, and folded up to fit in your wallet.  Here's an example of one of the prayers, a prayer for healing (PDF):

Prayer for Healing

Dear Jesus, we turn to you in this 

time of illness. Ease our worry 

and sorrow with your gentle love. 

Gift us with the strength to accept 

this burden. Lord, we place our 

worries in your hands. We place 

our sick under your care and ask 

that you restore your loved one 

to health again. Above all, grant 

us the grace to acknowledge your 

will and know that whatever you 

do, you do for the love of us.

Adapted from Missionary 

Oblates of Mary Immaculate 

Faith Videos for You

Looking at the world through a faith perspective requires some support and some challenge.  Tender, Strong, and True is a video series that tries to do just that.  With a wide range of relevant topics (starting and maintaining prayer, living faith at work, not being stressed), this video series is a real gem for anyone looking for help and guidance.

A great resource for Catholics on the go (they'll send you daily emails) or Catholics not on the go (watching videos), Pray.nd.edu can help you grow closer to God day by day.

If you have a website you recommend, leave a comment or send Isaac an email:

Website Wednesday: Busted Halo

Busted Halo looks like this

Today, we'll take a look at a popular web magazine focused on our Catholic faith, and faith in general: BustedHalo.com.  Don't be fooled by its name, the website is a great portal for growing your faith.  Overseen by the Paulist Fathers, Busted Halo tries its best to reach you where you're at through engaging articles, podcasts, videos and more.

Engaging the World
Busted Halo makes a point of writing articles relevant to what's going on in the world right now.  An example of that was their recent coverage on the death of Steve Jobs.  Four different blog articles from four different perspectives appeared on the website, sifting through Jobs' life and finding principles that can be applied to our life in faith or lamenting how his passing will affect their family life.  If there's something big going on in the world, an article from Busted Halo should appear shortly, engaging that event from a Catholic perspective.

Technology & the Family

Impossible to escape

Technology is ever present and ever changing.  You're experiencing that right now as you read this blog!

But how often do we pause and think about how we're experiencing technology and the effects that it has on ourselves?  How can we learn to embrace the positives of technological innovation while pushing back against the negatives?

Leading the charge to answer this question in the secular world is MIT professor Sherry Turkle, author of the book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.  She gave an interview on the book and this topic with a couple insightful takeaways on parenting in the age of the Internet.  [transcript of interview available here]