Catholic App Spotlight Update: Confession

 I first wrote about the Confession App earlier this year, at that time getting a lot of press.  I did download it and check it out, but wondered at the time if I would find myself using the App during actual confession.

Let me “confess” that I’ve become very fond of the Confession App, developed by Little iApps.  So much so, that last month when the App told me it had been two months since my last confession, I felt compelled to share with our parish priest, “While my iPhone says it’s been two months since my last confession, I know I’ve been here twice without my phone.”  He laughed.  And then when I got home I tweeted about doing that.  Am I geeky enough to have a Confession App?  Oh, yes I am.

Many months ago, the very first time I used it in confession, I showed my phone to the priest at a Franciscan parish in Peoria.  Somehow it seemed wrong that he not be aware that I was reading from the examination of conscience the App prompts.  He laughed and said he had heard about it, but it was the first time he heard an App-aided confession to his knowledge. 

Joking aside, I find the Confession App very spiritually helpful in a few key ways:

*the examination of conscience  is keyed to your state in life.  When I first set up my password-protected account, it asked if I were married, etc.  And the examination of conscience relates to that.

*a neat feature that follows the sacramental nature of Confession and what it does for your soul: after you go to confession, your sins, like in actual Confession, are literally wiped away—there’s no way to go back and look through what you confessed previously.  Each time you prepare for confession, the Examination of Conscience is fresh and unchecked.

*the prayer after finishing Confession changes each time you go, and they are lovely.  I wish there were a way to capture them for future reading—I remember particularly good ones from St. Gregory the Great and one from St. Josemaria Escriva, but I can’t find a way to go back and read them again.

I had thought I might use the Confession App for a nightly examination of conscience, but instead, I use my all-time favorite App, Universalis, for saying night prayer.  

Little iApps, the developer of Confession, have a great line-up of Apps.  I’ve downloaded all of them, and especially love the eVotions Apps on different saints.  Our family especially likes the photos on the St. Gianna Molla App.

In recent days, my 8-year-old son and I have taken to saying the novena to Blessed John Paul II in his “App,” as his before-bed prayers, and there’s nothing sweeter than hearing his little voice read through the prayer at the end of the novena. 

Have you used the Confession App?  Or do you have any Catholic Apps you’d like to share?