You can’t make this stuff up: eRosary. Wherein an annoyed Fr. Z rants.

UPDATE:

I figured I needed to do more, after I read that.  So, here is an old recording I made of a chaplet of the Most Holy Rosary using the Joyful Mysteries.   I didn’t include the “Fatima Prayer” because there seem to be different versions in Latin (it wasn’t not composed in Latin, of course).  I’ve heard some interesting Latin versions out there.  Hopefully, this will help.

 


Yesterday I posted a facetious story about Kukulkan coming to the Vatican… though t’aint that funny, given what we’ve seen lately.  That was from The Onion.

This morning I received a text… “Is this from The Onion?”

Nope… it’s from CNA… no, I couldn’t make this up.  Note the involvement of Jesuits:

Vatican promotes ‘smart rosary,’ selling for $109

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2019 / 09:44 am (CNA).- The Vatican promoted the launch of a ‘smart rosary’ bracelet Tuesday compatible with an iOS and Android app, which costs over $100.

“In a world of indifference and in the face of so many injustices, poverty, elementary rights denied, praying for peace in the world means reconciling ourselves in our daily relationships, with the poorest, with the stranger, with different cultures and spiritual and religious traditions, but also with our land, our forests, our rivers and oceans,” Fr. Frédéric Fornos, SJ said in a press release sent by the Holy See Press Office Oct. 14. [The Press Office, yet.  So someone is backing this.  Wonder why?]

“The rosary is a beautiful spiritual tradition for contemplating the Gospel with Mary, it is a simple and humble prayer,” he said.

The “eRosary” bracelet is activated by making the sign of the cross, and is synced to an app, “Click to Pray eRosary” that tracks the user’s progress and contains visual aids and audio reflections on the mysteries of the rosary. [And what might they include?  How do the want to form people’s prayer of the Rosary?]

The bluetooth and water-resistant digital rosary is currently available for pre-order sale on Amazon.it for 99 euros, roughly $109. It is sold by “Click to Pray” — an initiative of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.  [Hmmm… who are they, I wonder.]

Taiwan-based tech company GadgTek Inc (GTI) developed the “smart rosary” for the initiative.

Pope Francis launched the “Click to Pray” smartphone app in an Angelus address in January 2019, encouraging young people to download the app to pray the “Rosary of Peace.”

Among the “exclusive images and personalized content about the praying of the Rosary” contained in the app is a “themed” rosary option. Themes will include Laudato Si, migrants and refugees, vocations, and young people. [Nothing about the Amazon?]

“Aimed at the peripheral frontiers of the digital world where the young people dwell, the Click To Pray eRosary serves as a technology-based pedagogy to teach the young how to pray the Rosary, how to pray it for peace, how to contemplate the Gospel,” the Click to Pray press release said.  [Why promote people teaching people to pray the Rosary when you can have a environment themed app do it?]

Our mission is the truth. Join us!

Truth, huh?  How about some Veritatis splendor?  Oh, right… that’s not fashionable anymore.

Laudato si theme?  Migrants and refugees theme?

Periferal frontiers?

I’ll tell you who the perifery is now.  Traditional Catholics who don’t want trendy themes constantly shoved down their throats.

I’m surprised that the Jesuit homosexualist activist lobby wasn’t able to insert a sodomy theme in there.

eRosary?

How about this?   How about a Rosary that already has themes… perhaps the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries?

I call it…

rEalRosary

 

And it’s already water-resistant.  WARNING: It is not tears resistant.

You can get one of these.  They are tough and practical.

You can get one of these.  They are beautiful and bequeathable.

I don’t remember the exact locus of the image, perhaps The Lord of the Rings.  I am reminded of the image of a slug crawling across a beautiful lily.

The tech involved is just tech, I know.  Tech is neutral. But the Rosary already has its tech.

It’s called “a Rosary”.

In fact, a properly blessed Rosary.  What we call, in fact, The Most Holy Rosary.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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21 Comments

  1. Gab says:

    It’s hard work praying the Rosary, contemplating the Mysteries, praying with your heart as well at the same time as with the lips. Talking coeur à Coeur while saying the Ave Maria … lots going on, using the imagination, thinking about all the layers within each mystery and thinking back to connections with the Old Testament or contemplating what a Saint wrote about this or that aspect of the Rosary, hoping for the promised gifts, wondering about Our Lady’s humility or her love of poverty… asking for Grace to develop humility or more Charity or Faith, begging not to have a lukewarm heart while praying the Pater Noster, stilling the mind here and there and listening, contemplating how St Joseph reacted to this or that event, the obedience and trust in God when there was no inn to be found, the thankfulness and humility when a cave was found for the birth … Yep, it’s hard work that I prefer to do and not have some app try and do it for me. But I’m traditional in that sense. Good enough for the Saints and our forebears, good enough for me.

    However it may just be the way to get a younger generation to at least begin to pray the Rosary … or maybe the Pope doesn’t trust himself to verbally promote the Rosary old school. Who knows. It’s all so confusing.
    I’m surprised the bracelet doesn’t come with a pachamama charm or some feathers from an endangered species of bird from the Amazon.
    How much longer Lord?

    Rant over.

  2. teomatteo says:

    Vatican: the center cannot hold, they are in a freefall.

  3. JonPatrick says:

    I guess I will just stick with the 2 “dumb” rosaries I currently use – a combat rosary I carry with me at all times and at home a nice one my son got me when he visited Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma. The combat rosary is virtually indestructible so I got them for each of my 2 sons. In the dangerous world we live in we need to be carrying at all times!

  4. Ellen says:

    I have a LOT of rosaries in my house including a beautiful silver and crystal one that my father gave my mother when they were married and a large worn wooden one from my grandparents. I usually use a cord rosary that is indestructible (although I do want a combat rosary some day). I have a skill on my Amazon Echo from Relevant Radio that I use to pray the rosary. Father Rocky says the prayers in a normal tone (no pious voice) and leaves us to do our own mediation. It suits me just fine and if my wi-fi goes down, I just say the rosary on my own.

  5. My very first thought as I was reading this was a true story my mom used to tell about a poor shepherd in Mexico who would attend Mass or make a visit daily before he started his work. The people would be praying the Rosary. He wanted a Rosary but could not afford one.

    One day the old shepherd showed up at Mass and pulled out a Rosary he’d made from sheep droppings. He was so happy to have a Rosary but people were looking at him like he was nuts. He went to the front of the church and knelt down in front of a statue of Our Lady and started to pray the Rosary in all humility. It is said that Our Lady looked down at him and smiled.

    I wonder if this smart rosary will bring a smile to Our Lady’s lips. I wonder if, when people are dying they will be looking for an app for that. I wonder if, when people are standing at the judgement seat, if they will be looking for an app for that.

  6. Josephus Corvus says:

    I popped over to the Apple app store to see what the comments were for the associated app. Lots of “1-star” ratings. It seems like they make you login with your facebook or google account in order to even use it. Now, what are they doing with that information???

  7. I actually wrote a rosary program in Turbo Pascal for DOS many moons ago. I never envisioned it replacing physical beads, but more as an educational tool to help people learn how to do it. I also figured it might be good for handicapped people who couldn’t hold beads for one reason or another but maybe could have some way to press a key on the keyboard to advance to the next bead on the screen. I never imagined it to be a political tool. I certainly never expected to make much money on it, and I was correct on that score as I would not even need one hand much less one set of rosary beads to count the number of copies I sold.

  8. Sonshine135 says:

    This seems to me to be needless. I also pray my combat rosary and find the detachment from electronics to be freeing. That being said, there are already Rosary apps out there. You can download Laudate for free and have the ability to pray the Rosary if that floats your boat.

  9. Andrew says:

    My rosary is environmentally friendly: it doesn’t use batteries and it contains no plastic.

  10. WVC says:

    “I’m surprised that the Jesuit homosexualist activist lobby wasn’t able to insert a sodomy theme in there.” – okay, that was funny!

  11. Well, we have had communistic “social justice” and “peace” stations of the Cross for years. It was only a question of time before these same movers and shakers would try to corrupt the Rosary.

    My rosaries are all low-tech and environmental-friendly. I have a one-decade rosary ring for use in the car, a couple of rosaries in my purse, another one-decade rosary in my desk at work, and several distributed through the house. I do have a recording of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist reciting the Rosary, which I have used as a crutch during times when I struggled with not wanting to say my daily Rosary.

  12. Aquinas Gal says:

    At Lourdes once a wealthy woman gave St Bernadette a classy rosary to pray with while Our Lady appeared. But Mary indicated she did not approve of this and wanted Bernadette to use her own poor rosary.

  13. William says:

    This definitely sounds like the initiative of a septuagenarian trying to appear cool to his grandkids.

    That being said, I learned to pray the rosary from a computer program (not an “app”) in 2001. It was simply called “virtual rosary.” At the time, I was Baptist and I was afraid my parents would freak out and all you-know-what would break loose if they saw me praying the Rosary. So I learned to pray on my computer. Later, I made a rosary out of a long string of paperclips and prayed it in my closet after everyone had gone to bed.

    At this point, I was not going to Mass and I am not sure I had ever gone to Mass. I came to believe in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church from good, accurate Catholic sites on the internet (such as the old askfather.net). Since going to Mass was not really an option for me, praying the Rosary stealthily was the next best thing.

    Ironically, the various anti-Catholic sites out there pushed me in this direction, too, because they painted a vision of Catholicism that was so bizarre and non-conforming to reality. It seemed odd to me that, if Catholicism was false and Protestantism true, they would have to distort Catholicism so much.

  14. Kathleen10 says:

    I have a CD that I do use in the car. It’s a free CD anyone can get by contacting the Mary Foundation, also known as “Catholic City”. I don’t know if it’s better or worse than other Rosary CD’s, but the time flies by in the car. I love music but don’t want to hear it during the Rosary, and I don’t think there is any music on this CD.
    Those Rosary thingies are going to be on clearance quick. Who on God’s earth would use it. Sheer moneymaking gimmick by people who ironically are trying to guilt the planet into living like cavemen.

  15. MitisVis says:

    This is not surprising. The suppressors of traditional devotions are promoting of all things the rosary? That can only mean they are targeting our children and those weak in faith.

    “Aimed at the peripheral frontiers of the digital world where the young people dwell, the Click To Pray eRosary serves as a technology-based pedagogy to teach the young how to pray the Rosary, how to pray it for peace, how to contemplate the Gospel,” the Click to Pray press release said.
    ” Themes will include Laudato Si, migrants and refugees, vocations, and young people.”

    What better way to steer the young and impressionable to the “new paths” and avoid the rigid and possibly disturbed practices of old, by dangling a flashy bobble of the electronic world in front of them. New and exciting Themes to follow.
    However, with the Blessed Mother this may very well backfire on them.

  16. mysticalrose says:

    There’s a typo — I think it’s called the “Click to Pay” rosary. The jokes just write themselves these days.

  17. bobbortolin says:

    Andrew Saucci – I just wanted to say that I remember your old Rosary program! I have muscular dystrophy and I used your program a lot and, since I can’t physically cycle through the beads, your program made it a lot easier to say the prayers correctly. Thank you!

  18. Bobbortolin, all I can say is wow! That was 30 years ago. Glad to see it helped someone.

  19. Suburbanbanshee says:

    We all will have some real surprises at the General Judgment, but some of it will be finding out the good that people never knew about, that God helped them do; and the close connections to people they never met.

    I suspect that both the late Supertradmum and the Blessed Mother had a hand in this unexpected meeting. It is just too cool!

  20. The Cobbler says:

    In a world of indifference and in the face of so many injustices, poverty, elementary rights denied, praying for peace in the world means reconciling ourselves in our daily relationships, with the poorest, with the stranger, with different cultures and spiritual and religious traditions, but also with our land, our forests, our rivers and oceans.

    I’m confused. This sounds like an exhortation not to blow hundreds of bucks on a modern Western glorified technodoodad. Hypocrites!

  21. KAS says:

    I have enjoyed the StClementEpress Rosary plus. You touch the bead on the screen after the prayer to track. It was pretty. That said, books and beads are my preference!

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