“There’s a (Vincentian) app for that!”

There really is a Vincentian app for that! Click on the link for Mobile Apps for Vincentians in the VinFormation segment of this site for the first in a series of mobile apps developed for the Vincentian Family. These apps will send a Vincentian quote of the day, daily reflections in the Vincentian tradition, feeds taken from daily famvin posts.

But wait, there is more!

There is an app for the game “Hobson’s Choice” which simulates the harsh choices you face when living in poverty. Finally, for the moment, there is an app “Ultimate Change” which allows you to experience a fictional systemic change project through the eyes of one of seven characters.

New to smartphone apps?

The page includes a set of instructions for two different ways of installing these apps.  There are are also links explaining “QR” codes and how to use them.

For those for whom all this is bewildering it may be helpful to remember that when missionaries land in a new country they have to learn the language and customs of the people they hope to reach out to. If we hope to reach out to those who have grown up digital we digital immigrants should be encouraged to learn their language and customs.

Observations:

• Blessed John Paul II urged all members of the Church to launch out into the deep of the Internet.
• One of the first Daughters of Charity, Marguerite Naseau, was so convinced that young women of Vincent’s time needed to learn to read and write that, being herself illiterate, she would ask passers-by to teach her the alphabet.
• “On June 20, 1647, St. Vincent cried out very spontaneously at a meeting of the General Council of the Daughters of Charity: “Oh, my God, how necessary it is to have great communication with one another. To share everything. There is nothing more necessary. That is what binds hearts together” (SV XIII, 641).