Daily Prayer & Devotions
3-Minute Retreat (Loyola Press) – 3-Minute Retreats invite people to take a short prayer break right at their computer by spending some quiet time reflecting on a Scripture passage. People have control over the pace of the retreat. Subscribe to get the daily retreat via email or download the app for iOS and Android.
d365 Daily Devotional for Youth (Passport, Inc.) – d365 provides inspirational and relevant reflections on scripture for young people. The devotional experience is written especially for students and seeks to provide reflections on themes that impact their faith journey, creating a quiet space in their lives for meditation and prayer. Devotions are available every day of the year, and the common liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent through the special series Following the Star and Journey to the Cross. A third series, Back2School, recognizes the significant transition between summer and fall in the lives of students.
Daily Prayer App (Presbyterian Church USA) – The Daily Prayer app provides simple, yet rich devotional resources for morning, midday, evening, and close of day. Each service includes psalms and readings from the confessions. Other elements include opening and closing words, biblical canticles, a thanksgiving for light and a prayer of confession. An advanced features menu allows users to customize which elements appear.
The Divine Hours (ExploreFaith.org) – The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle is a manual for fixed-hour prayer. It presents the prayers to be prayed at the divine hours of every day: Morning prayers, for prayer between 6 and 9; midday prayers for praying between 11 and 2; and evening prayers to pray between 5 and 8, and help us gently close the day. Click on the “Pray the Hours” link on the Divine Hours homepage, indicate the timezone, and the prayer for that hour will appear on the screen.
Faith Gateway (HarperCollins Christian Publishing) – FaithGateway is an online community for readers to discover great content and engage with their favorite Christian authors. FaithGateway brings together content in many different forms: daily blog posts, devotionals, and free downloads.
God Pauses (Luther Seminary) – God Pause e-mail devotions are short, meaningful reflections on the following Sunday’s lessons and gospel delivered directly by e-mail.
Jesuit Daily Prayer – This prayer site offers a daily scripture reading, Ignation reflection, and Ignatian prayer for each day of the year. People can subscribe to receive an email each day. There are apps for iOS and Android.
Pray As You Go (Jesuit Media Initiatives of Great Britain) – Pray as you go is a daily prayer session, designed for use on portable MP3 players, to help people pray whenever they find time, but particularly while travelling to and from work, study, etc. A new prayer session is produced every day of the working week and one session for the weekend. It is a framework for person prayer, lasting between ten and thirteen minutes, with music, scripture and questions for reflection. People can sign to receive prayer by email and download the app for iOS and Android.
Sacred Space Daily Prayer (Irish Jesuits) – Sacred Space is inspired by the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The website guides people through a session of prayer, in six stages, including preparing your body and mind, and culminating in reflection on a scripture passage chosen specially for the day. The stages are: The Presence of God, Freedom, Consciousness, The Word, Conversation, and Conclusion.
Saint of the Day (AmericanCatholic.org) – Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each day the Catholic Church honors a saint. Saint of the Day provides a summary of the saint’s life and quote from him or her. There is also Saint of the Day app.
Signposts Daily Devotions (ExploreFaith.org) – Devotions are organized into themes such as anxiety, compassion, discernment, forgiveness, hardship, humility, and many more.
Upper Room Daily Reflections (Upper Room Ministries) – Each day of the Daily Reflections is organized in a similar fashion: Reflection, Question, Scripture Verse, Saint of the Day, and Lectionary Readings for the Day. People can subscribe to receive the daily reflections.
Seasonal Devotionals
Prayer & Spirituality Resources & Activities
Digital Ignatian Exercises (a service of Loyola Press) – This is a digitally enhanced experience of The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola intended for spiritual directors, practitioners, extenders, and promoters of Ignatian spirituality. This resource is designed to support those who lead others in the Exercises, whether as a 30-day retreat, a 19th annotation retreat, or some other variation.In this launch phase of the Online Exercises, you’ll find the Louis J. Puhl, SJ translation, (with more translations to be added later), commentaries and notes, plus videos, images, PowerPoint presentations, and multi-media prayer experiences that you can use to enhance the experience of the Exercises for yourself or those you are directing.
Explore Faith – Spirituality – Explore Faith provides a variety of spirituality resources and activities organized into sections on 1) Prayer (prayer forms and activities) and Meditation (art, music, poetry, and reading); 2) Living Spiritually, and 3) Tools for the Journey. The Explore Faith iPhone app features more than 600 prayers to help people think deeply and intentionally about what they want to communicate to God.
Ignatian Spirituality (a service of Loyola Press) – This website offers information on and experiences of Ignatian spirituality from Jesuit and Ignatian sources around the world. IgnatianSpirituality.com provides pathways into the major areas of Ignatian spirituality: prayer spiritual direction retreats making good decisions. It serves all audiences—the curious, the knowledgeable, and the expert.
Living Prayer Center (A Ministry of the Upper Room) – The Upper Room Living Prayer Center helps individuals, small groups and local congregations grow in their understanding and experience of prayer – to help disciples of Christ experience the living, transformative power of prayer. The Living Prayer Center has resources on Prayer Methods – Lectio Divina, Praying the Psalms, Icons, Praying with Scripture, the Examen, and more; and Articles on Prayer.
Loyola Press Prayer Center – The Prayer Center provides a variety of resources and activities for praying and for helping people learn how to pray: Arts & Faith, Children’s Prayers, Contemporary Prayers, Daily Inspirations, Family Prayers, Personal Prayer Life, and Traditional Catholic Prayers.
Online Ignatian Retreat (Creighton University) – The online repeat is designed for people too busy to make a traditional retreat. A simple Guide each week places themes, reflections, questions and desires into the background of people’s busy lives. People learn to find greater focus and to let one week build upon another.
Soul Care – Spiritual Formation – Soul Care books and resources, designed by Mindy Caliquire, are designed to be simple (but not simplistic) guides to maintaining or recovering the life and health of one’s soul. On the “Resources” section of the website there are links to books, journals, articles, key spiritual practices, activities, and more.
Spirituality & Practice – Resources for Spiritual Journeys – This multifaith and inter spiritual website/resource center, founded by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, is devoted to resources for spiritual journeys. The site’s name reflects a basic understanding: spirituality and practice are the two places where all the world’s religions and spiritual paths come together. While respecting the differences among traditions, the website celebrates what they share in common. The web site includes spiritual practices; e-courses and online retreats; reviews of books, audios, films, and documentaries; and religious and spiritual paths – content from specific religious and spiritual paths, and more. Sign up for e-newsletter to get regular updates on what’s happening. Here’s an overview of the content:
- Spirituality & Practice Website
- Daily Features: Spiritual Practice of the Day, Spiritual Reading of the Day, Today’s Quote, and Today’s Teacher
- Spiritual Practices: The site is organized around “The Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy,” 37 essential practices of the spiritual life. On most pages of the site, there is related the content to a “Main Practice” and “Other Practices.”
- Spiritual Practices Toolkit: The toolkit consists of more than 260 classic and informal spiritual practices.
- E-Courses: E-courses are taught by renowned spiritual teachers. “Current courses” include access to a private online Practice Circle where participants talk about their responses to the lessons and their experiences with the practices. More than 100 previously record courses are available on-demand.
- Films: This section presents reviews that finding spiritual meaning in today’s films — from Hollywood blockbusters to special interest documentaries. There are only positive reviews, so people don’t waste your time reading about films that are not recommended. There are reviews of the latest movie releases and a database of more than 5,000 reviews.
- Books: This section has reviews of books, including children’s books and audiobooks; most also include an excerpt from the book. There are positive reviews – books that are really recommended for the spiritual journey. There are also lists of the Best Spiritual Books of the last 17 years. There are 7,000 book reviews and 4,500 excerpts in the database.
- Arts: Included in the section are reviews of new books on art and photography as well as music CDs. To support a “Visio Divina” practice, there are reflections on art and photography. There are also art galleries and music playlists.
St. Mary’s Press Resource Center – St. Mary’s Press offers an extensive (free) resource center with hundreds of digital activities for faith formation with adolescents (middle school and high school) organized the categories below. There are many activities that are focused specifically on Catholic faith formation, but much of the content can be used effectively in all Christian faith formation.
Vibrant Faith at Home (Vibrant Faith) – a multi-age faith formation resource center – young families, teen families, young adults, adults/couples – with hundreds of faith forming activities to equip and empower households to: talk with each other about their faith, pray together, ritualize their important moments, reach out in service and support of others, learn about the Christian faith, and explore and read the Bible.
Prayer & Spirituality Online Courses
Spirituality & Practice E-Courses – This multifaith and inter spiritual website/resource center, founded by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, is devoted to resources for spiritual journeys. They offer e-courses taught by renowned spiritual teachers. “Current courses” include access to a private online Practice Circle where participants talk about their responses to the lessons and their experiences with the practices. More than 100 previously record courses are available on-demand. Courses range in prices from $25-$50 per course. Sign up for e-newsletter to get regular updates on what’s happening.
Upper Room E-Learning (Upper Room Ministries) – Upper Room offers online retreats and courses featuring Upper Room Books on topics such as spiritual formation and life issues. Go to their website to see the ongoing and current courses.