With church services kept to a bare minimum and in-person Masses down to a 10th of a church’s usual capacity due to pandemic restrictions, community worship has all but ceased. They have been replaced—one hopes only temporarily—by online Masses and prayer meetings.

Now, people can attend services at their own pace. Missed the 7 a.m. Mass? Don’t worry, it’s online and you can click and attend at your convenience. There are even prayer apps one can download for daily Bible passages and prayers.

Hallow, available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play, has a list of common prayers dear to Catholics, including the rosary and the Angelus. If you find it hard to concentrate while praying the mysteries of the rosary, you can pray along to a recording.

Pray is another app available for download that has become the world’s top app for daily prayer and Bible-based audio content. Launched five years ago in 2017, it has gone on to reach more that 10 million people worldwide.

Last week, singer Gary Valenciano was introduced as its newest ambassador. Although he was initially not aware of pray.com (available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play) and its global reach, he was thankful to be given the chance to help more people at a time like this.

“It’s been a rollercoaster ride for everybody. Aside from the pandemic, there was also the closure of ABS-CBN so that was tough [for me],” he told Lifestyle.

Like others who didn’t know what to expect as the weeks and months in lockdown crawled by, Valenciano relied on prayer.

“Sometimes people need to be dismayed in order to see the need to pray. Many times, in order for us to get back up on our feet, we have to be brought down to our knees.”

A purpose to everything

While it might seem to some as unjust and cruel punishment, he believes there is a purpose to everything.

“We can be very stubborn by continuing to rely on our own abilities, our own efforts to make life what we feel it should be. I don’t think the pandemic and the death toll is God’s will. He’s allowing it to happen because it’s the only way to reach people for some greater future He has prepared for us,” Valenciano said.

The audio material he recorded for pray.com is not as dire. In fact, it’s designed to put you to sleep. As part of the category Bedtime Bible Stories, he tells the tale of Joseph and his brothers.

Valenciano starts by preparing the listeners for sleep, instructing them to breathe in and out, to close their eyes and gradually drift away. His voice is modulated and calming. It’s like he’s done this before. And he has.

“In 2008, I was already making my own version in my home studio. These were short stories from the Bible, enough to capture the attention span of the young, that we all know is very short.”

He tried it out on TV host Robi Domingo when they were on a tour for the noontime show “ASAP” years ago. Valenciano let Domingo listen to one of the stories, and watched as he reacted.

“When it ended, Robi looked at me and asked, ‘Is there more?’” Valenciano recalled. That’s when he realized the audio recordings had potential.

He’s hopeful that even if the younger generation might not be as familiar with him as their parents’ generation might be, they will consider downloading the app.

“They have their phones with them all the time so they can easily access it. They don’t even have to get the premium subscription as 90 percent of the content is free,” he said.

Those who miss the community aspect of praying can have some semblance of that as the app allows subscribers to pray together, Valenciano added.

“You can even send messages and check up on each other,” he said. INQ