February 2020 newsletter

The 40 days of the Christmas season finished just over a week ago, and the 40 days of Lent are already getting near. Remember, if you have the kind of people around you who compare notes about Giving Things Up: the point of Lent is not only penance and repentance but also an increase in joy. Giving up bad things is no doubt good for you; but giving up good things is even better. It means that you can give thanks to God for them and rejoice when he gives them back to you at Easter. In some moods we need to be reminded that God made the whole world and saw that it was very good.

A new instructional video (Android)

We have created a short video to help you get started with the Universalis app on Android. It takes you through choosing the text size, the colour scheme (dark or light), and so on.

You can watch this video on You Tube – here is the link.

We plan to make more of these videos in the future, so stay tuned!

A new instructional video

We have created a short video to help you get started with the Universalis app on iOS. It takes you through choosing the text size, the colour scheme (dark or light), and so on.

You can watch this video on You Tube – iPhone version – iPad version.

We plan to make more of these videos in the future, so stay tuned!

The Epiphany again

Some people get into a terrible flap after the Epiphany, and six years out of seven they write to us to say that we have got the readings wrong. So this post really ought to appear every year.

In religious parts of the world the Epiphany is celebrated when it always has been: on the 6th of January, when good children get presents from the Kings. In more commercial parts of the world the Epiphany is moved to the Sunday after New Year’s Day, so that the Twelve Days of Christmas become the Eight Days or the Fourteen Days.

The reason for all the panic is that a day such as Wednesday 8 January 2020 has different readings depending on where you are. In religious countries it is 8 January, the second day after the Epiphany. In commercial countries it is Wednesday after Epiphany Sunday, the third day after the Epiphany.

The date of the Epiphany

At about this time of year we tend to get a few emails from people who say that we have got the calendar wrong. This is because the solemnity of the Epiphany is celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world. There are two choices:

• It can be celebrated on January the 6th, the thirteenth day of Christmas. That is why the eve of the Epiphany is called Twelfth Night.
• It can be celebrated on the Sunday between the 2nd and 8th of January.

Universalis does both. If you set Universalis to use your local calendar, you will see the Epiphany on the right day for you.

Christmas presents

The two safest kinds of present to give at Christmas are the kind that lasts no time at all (it gets eaten or drunk, so you don’t have to keep on being grateful for it) and the kind that lasts for ever – such as Universalis. Universalis is a present that will be with the recipient for life, through the pious times and the pagan ones, through the dry seasons and the fruitful ones.

This year we also have our new “New Every Day 2020” e-book. It has its own web page, but you can also read more about it below.

New ebook: “New Every Day”!

Sample page: click to enlarge

We have just brought out a new e-book, in time for Christmas.

It is the sort of book you will want to keep with you all year, to read or just dip into. Your friends will love it too. It is the perfect present.

“New Every Day” has 366 chapters, one for each day of the year. It celebrates not only every day but also a huge number of saints: over 600 of them. There are spiritual readings for every day and for many of the saints. There are biographies of the saints and over 300 illustrations.

The readings come from all periods, from the early 2nd century to the end of the 20th. Some of the authors are famous, like St Augustine. Some are great orators, like St Leo the Great. About others, nothing at all is known, like the anonymous ancient author (11 April) who imagines Jesus going down into the underworld and meeting Adam face to face. There are readings by the saints and readings about them. St Peter Claver (9 September) describes the arrival of a slave ship in Colombia and what has to be done for its passengers. Mr Masten, Protestant chaplain of Newgate prison, writes (23 June) about the last night and morning of the martyr St Thomas Garnet: “I never saw him so full of life, and almost miraculous cheerfulness”. St Thérèse of Lisieux (1 October) lays out her unique spirituality, which changed our notions of sainthood for ever and led her to be acclaimed as a Doctor of the Church.

Sample page: click to enlarge

“New Every Day” is not a prayer-book. That is good, because a prayer-book is like a gym subscription – it carries an obligation with it (and, if you give it to someone as a present, there is more than a hint that you’ll be asking them how the exercise programme is going!).

“New Every Day” is more human and delightful than that. It is a treasury of spiritual uplift and refreshment. You can dip into it most days, or look through and explore whenever you need it, or just feel like it.

And your friends and family will love it as well.

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Price: £7.99 (UK), $9.99 (USA). Available worldwide.

ePub: · Get it on Apple Books

Kindle: Get it from Amazon UK · USA · Australia · Brazil· Canada · France · Germany · India · Italy · Japan · Mexico · Netherlands · Spain

See also: How to give e-books as presents.

How to give e-books as presents

Both Apple Books and Amazon make it easy to give our e-books as presents to your friends and family.

Amazon Kindle e-books: see Purchase a Kindle Book as a Gift on Amazon’s site.

Apple Books: see Apple’s Send a Gift page. You can send gifts from the Books app on your device or from the Apple Books web site on your computer.

Advanced Debugging on iOS

Very, very rarely, a problem comes up where we need the Universalis app to report precisely what it is doing at every instant, and also to report every detail of its configuration.

How to send a Contact Us message

All the Universalis apps and programs now have a command called “Contact Us”. This is a good way of getting in touch with us, because it creates an email which automatically contains a lot of useful information – such as which version you are using, what calendar and language settings you have, and what page you are looking at.