The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - 10 Ways to Use Your Smartphone

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Can a smartphone help you grow in holiness? Jeff shares 10 practical ways to transform your device from a distraction into a tool for deepening your faith. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 453. 10 ways to use your smartphone. Welcome to the show. I'm Jeff Kaven. So grateful for you joining me today. And if you're brand new, welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy it. We talk about scripture. We talk about discipleship. We talk about ways of witnessing apologetics, all of it. And today we're going to be talking about 10 ways

to use your smartphone as a Christian, as a Christian. And of course, most of the people that are listening to this show are Catholic, and so we're going to be mentioning some particularly Catholic ways of using the smartphone, and I think it'll be a real help. At least give you some new ideas on how to go about using your smartphone in a holy way. We should actually call them holy phones, shouldn't we? Separated, distinct, useful in the kingdom of God. It's for the Lord's service, not just our own, not merely a form of entertainment, but a tool in the disciples' toolbox, right? hey if you do want the notes i do have oh let's see i got a list here for you have 10 things but got 11 apps i'm going to be mentioning to you if you do want the show notes all of this and you are

currently running walking uh driving and you can't take the notes we'll get them to you all you got to do is send my name text my name one word jeff kavens and text it to the number 3 3377 that's 2 3 3 3 3 7's pretty holy right the biblical number right 3 3 3 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 we'll get you the notes. So, wow, you know, right now, if you hear in the background, I'm out here in the cabin. I'm out deep in the woods of Minnesota right now, and it is windy, and there are white caps on the lake, and those leaves that now are brown are blowing everywhere. So if you hear a big sound, that's either a bunch of leaves hitting my window or a tree or something. But I kind of enjoy it, to be honest with you.

I like the change of seasons. I really do. we in Minnesota, as Oprah Winfrey asked Prince one time in an interview, you know, you live in Minneapolis? And like she was surprised, he said, yeah, he said, she goes, why? And he said, the cold weather keeps all the bad people out. I don't know if that's true, but that's what one of our homeboys, one of our young men went on to sing and to become quite an artist. That's what he said.

All right, let's do this. I have my phone in my hand right now, and I have in here all kinds of different apps. Now, one of the things about my phone that I'm not real pleased with is the amount of time that it really takes away from my day. And what I mean by that is that oftentimes I have five minutes here, five minutes there, maybe sitting in a doctor's waiting room or the dentist or something like that. And I'm just kind of searching around rather than thinking about and praying about the things that are really, really. important. One of the things that I have done is I have put the essential apps on the front, on the first page, I guess you'd say, of my smartphone, rather than a lot of them that I'm not going to use. And every once in a while, I just go through all the apps and I make a decision,

do I really need this? And I usually start thinking, well, you never know. I might have to edit this or edit that. And after a year, find out, I never did. And so I take them off. And so, I have a pretty thin list of apps that I use on my phone, and that's, that's on purpose. You might want to think about taking away the things that take your time away, or if there are certain apps that you'd use on your computer, but you know you're not going to use on your phone, take them off, get them out of the way. So let's take a look at this. I've got 10, 10 ways to use your smartphone, or aka your holy phone, and use it for the kingdom of God rather than just playing around and looking at squirrels on roller skates and that type of thing.

Not that squirrels on roller skates are not important, but not right now. So let's do this. I'm going to start from the very beginning of your day. One of the ideas that you can do with your phone is you can set alarms on your phone. And I utilize those. And there are times where I will set an alarm or two for some time during the day to remind me of something. Not like pick up potatoes on the way home or anything like that, but to remind me that it's a feast day, to remind me the gospel, to look at it, to remind me to pray for someone. And, you know, my word that you can set up as many alarms as you as you want.

And so you can use it as an alarm. You can set it, for example, at 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. for the Angeles, 3 p.m. for the divine mercy. There are times in our life as Catholics that we pray a specific prayer at a certain time, and let's face it, time gets away from us. So why not set an alarm? Make it smart. Set an alarm, right? That's number one.

Number two is to set an alarm to wake you up in the morning. Now, I don't usually use an alarm, to be honest, to get up, because I get up naturally at about 4.30 or 5 in the morning. And it's just been the way I am. I get up early, and I love the early time to pray, to read, to think, have a cup of tea, and then my wife comes down. So I don't usually use an alarm. It's a pretty rare day that I do, but I do know that you might, you know. And rather than waking up to the typical, an alarm sound that literally alarms you,

why not wake up to praise music, you know? Why not wake up to praise music? Now, one of the apps that I'm going to suggest here actually has this type of thing in it that can help you and wake up at a certain time and have beautiful music. So set the alarm to praise music. Wouldn't it be better to wake up to 10,000 reasons or Ave Maria than, you know, just, you know, wakes you up? What a way to start your day. Who came up with that anyway? That seems awfully strange, you know?

It's like, yeah, by this alarm, it'll abuse you at 6 in the morning. I don't think so. So either do what I'm doing, get up at 4.30 naturally, or use your alarm and wake up with praise music. And some of them you can even set to start very quietly and work your way up to where it's like, okay, I better turn that off now. All right. So that's number two. Number three, you can use what I would call holy lists.

What's a holy list? all right now a holy list like in my phone here i have what is i got the notes i use notes on an apple phone and i'm sure that the other phones have types of notes programs too i just always been kind of an apple fanboy i guess but uh using notes they can set up oh you know what i do use on the apple phone i to do this i use what's called reminders on here and it sinks with my laptop and i can say my wife can have we both share a list here's the deal holy lists, what am I talking about? Well, you can use it for a prayer list. All the people in your life that you pray for, you need to do it on paper for sure, but I'm telling you that if you use it for

prayer list, you can write down the things you're praying for for each person, and you can even prioritize it, put certain people at the top or certain needs at the top. But another list is a list of books that you want to get to, you want to read, or a talk you want to listen. to. You can create a list of the books or a lot of good movies out now that different Christian companies are putting out some marvelous movies these days. And you can make a list of some of the things that you want to watch when you have time. The problem with making a list of movies to go to or to watch is that you feel obligated. But you don't have to feel obligated. It's if you're going to watch a movie, you've got a list there. Emily and I have a

list of we ever get in the mood of, hey, let's watch a movie. We have a list that we go to. Also, a list of confession notes. What do you think of that? Confession notes. That's a good one. When I go to confession, I typically have a list. It's not long, usually. But I do have a list, and I use that.

Now, when I go into confession and I have a list of things that I want to talk about, I usually put it on airplane mode because I don't want my voice being picked up by my phone. Now, if I'm wrong on that, let me know if I've heard people say that, well, it still can hear you. And I think there's something true about that. But, oh, well, you know, this is between me and Jesus. I'm going to trust him with it. But anyway, a confession list would be something that would be quite useful. Number four would be the Lexio Divina and the examine prayer.

Now, Lexio Divina is a way of praying the scriptures with an outline. It's like an outline. It's a shape to it. And you can find this anywhere on the internet, the Lexio-Divina formula for looking at a scripture and tapping it for all its worth in your life. So I'm not going to get into that. Now, if you look at the past shows that I've done, I've done a lot on Lexio-Divina, you can look up some of those shows.

But it's easy to find out on the web, just do a search about Lexio-Divina. It'll give you the four steps on how to squeeze from the Word of God or the Gospel of the Day, everything that you can get out of it. plus the examined prayer. Ignatius came up with that wonderful prayer at the end of the day, where you look back on the day and you ask yourself a few questions. You can set that up in a note on your smartphone. So during the day, you have something to go to.

At the end of the day, it'll walk you through. And maybe you already have something like that, but you can put it in a place that becomes part of your hararum, you know, your daily shape to your day. all right number five podcasts and videos like on youtube right one of the things that you can do is you can set up on youtube you can set up themes that you are interested in like keywords and and you can make a list of some of the videos that have been very helpful for you on various topics like mary or faith or intercession or suffering the mass the eucharist you name it

the papacy. And you can create your own list. And in many cases, you can share your list with with others. If you have a group of men or women that you get together with, you can share that. You can do the same with podcast. And my word, there's so many different podcast apps. Apple has theirs, of course, but you can get other ones as well. Let me go to one more before we take our break. Do you travel much? I mean, do you travel for a living or do you find yourself, going into other cities and maybe it's Sunday or maybe it's Thursday and you want to go to Mass and you're not exactly sure where to go. Mass times. That's a wonder. That's actually an app, isn't it? I snuck that in there. Mass times is really, really, really helpful. So if it's

not mass times, there are the USCB. There's other other places to go where you can find out where churches are in that area that you're traveling to. And so it becomes really a link to Eucharist, a link to prayer, or go into confession on the road. So, all right, we're going to take a break when we come back. I've got more to share with you. We're talking today about 10 ways to use your holy phone, aka smartphone. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and I'm excited to announce that I'll be hosting season

four of the Catholic Classics podcast from Ascension Press. This year, we'll read through the imitation of Christ by Thomas. a campus and unpack the timeless wisdom and profound spiritual lessons laid out in this book. You guys, the imitation of Christ is the second most widely read Catholic devotional ever written only behind the Bible. And so many saints have read this book. So many people have been inspired to imitate the life and teachings of Jesus through this podcast. You will learn what it means to imitate Christ and how we can do that in a world that seems to only want to pull us away from him. Starting October 22nd in the Ascension app, we'll read a section of the book

every single day and then unpack what it means and how it applies to our lives today. You can start listening for free today by downloading the Ascension app, or you can download the reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash Catholic Classics. I'll see you over there. God bless. Welcome back talking today about 10 ways to use your smartphone, and we've been talking about setting an alarm for various things throughout the day, reminding you of what day it is. is, setting alarmed as praise music to wake you up. Also, holy lists. We talked a little bit about that. Elsa, Lexio de Vina, and the examined prayer. Podcasts and videos, you can use them for the good.

Don't get caught in the weeds and just waste time. Use things that are really going to build you up, really fortify, nurture your spirit. That's important. And then, of course, we talked about mass times. Anywhere you're at, any day, you can find out where the mass is being. celebrated. Now, there's a couple of other apps for serious Bible students, and I hope you're one of them. And there's two. Now, both of these are used on both the Google platform and the Apple platform. There are two. One is on the non-Catholic side, but you can still get Catholic material, Logos. Logos. The Catholic version of it is called Verbum. Verbum. It's a fine app that will link to your your computer account and you can set up studies do searches and they have

Verbum has a lot of Catholic materials. The other one is called Accordance. And by the way, I am putting all this in the notes for you. Don't worry about that. Accordance. I use Accordance a lot. Accordance, it has a complete Catholic package. And I believe that you can use Logos, Verbum, accordance all on either the Google phone or the Apple. Well, I know you can on Mac because that's what I've been using. Clear Act since

Lincoln was president. Now, the advantage of these is that you can bring your work with you as far as studying Scripture or the Church Fathers. It's really limitless as to what you can get on these apps. In fact, as I said that I was looking up at some of my books out here at the cabin, and I have some

here. I got some back at home, but I was reminded that I think about, it must have been eight years ago, I sold a boatload of books online of mine to buy the electronic packages. And so I could search much more efficiently. So Verbum and Accordance, those are very, very good. Here's another one. This would be number eight, right? Yeah. And that is praise music. Wow. When I say praise music, I'm talking about not only videos, obviously, and I know a lot of people love to play the videos. You can't watch when you drive. At least you're not supposed to. But I'm talking also about like Apple music and I know that Google has their own

deal going, but putting together lists of praise music that really lift you up. You know, sometimes at the end of the day when you've been at work and it's been tough and it hasn't been the best day for you. You get in the car and what do you do? You turn the news on and start listening to bad news. No, I don't think so. I think that use that time before you go home to listen to some praise music. Begin to enter into praise. You'll be a different man. You'll be a different woman when you get home.

And that's what your family's waiting for. They're not waiting for crabby you. They're not waiting for frustrated you. They're waiting for happy, holy, and uplifted you. And so praise music can help you do that. I have a list of all kinds of songs that I love to listen to in the car. And when Emily and I take trips, sometimes we have these playlists. And when I was riding motorcycles with my friends around the country, I had

playlists of really good Christian music that I would listen to while I was going all across the country on my Harley Davidson, Rogue Glide Ultra. So that's really good. Praise music. Here's one, Catholic Radio. Did you know that nearly everybody who's into Catholic radio today, whether it be EWTN, relevant radio, Ave Maria, Guadalupe, all. seem to have access via an app. And I don't know, does I heart radio have that? Some of the others?

I'm not sure. But I do know that you can listen to Catholic radio via apps if it's on your smartphone. That is another great way to use it. Okay. Now, let's take a look at some of the apps that are out there that are, I think, very, very helpful. All right? Number one, I would say ascension. The Ascension app was one of the real leaders out there. The Ascension app is amazing. The Father Mike and I work with that. And the Bible studies are on there. The Great Adventure. This podcast is on the Ascension app. Hello, right here. And so many more podcasts. And so it's really a treasure trove. The two big things are the Great Adventure Bible and the new catechism. And the Liturgy of the Hours is coming up. out and ascension is one of two ministries that have been given the rights by the USCB to publish the urge you the hours wait for it wait for it it's going to be incredible

I'm sure it'll be on your app I'm pretty sure it will be the next one is hallow hallow has a man you talk about a number one prayer app in the in the world and of course I have a daily reflection with jonathan rumy on hallow so hallow will teach you to pray has all kinds of devotions you get to listen to some of the people who are pretty well known out there. You know, Jonathan Rumi and Mark Wahlberg and Gwen Stefani and others who are contributing to this kingdom. And that reminds me of one thing. We got to have a good attitude. We got to love these people and make a place for them to grow and ask ourselves,

how can we be of any assistance in prayer or encouragement? So that's the Hallow app. Now, I mentioned one already, which was mass times, and so I won't go into that anymore, but that's a very helpful app. La Datee. La Datee seems to have become ubiquitous out there in terms of Bible verses, the USCB, apologetics, prayers, devotions, all kinds of stuff. While Hallow and Ascension have a lot of this, La Date also has a lot of these things and some niches that are really interesting. My parish is an interesting app where Euro parish can actually

have kind of a docking station there where people can be communicated with. Now here's another thing that I did within my calendar. I went online and I have a Google calendar. I went in and found the Catholic calendar that gives me feast days and, you know, the things that are important to us on our liturgical calendar and I integrated that into my Google calendar, which is integrated into my Apple calendar. And I even use a different calendar. I actually don't use either of those that much. I use one called BusyCal and it's integrated into that as well. So that gives me a sense of the heartbeat of the church. I know that Hallow has a rosary, many rosary opportunities. Irosary is an app that many people use. I Missile is one that people use for the Mass. That's another one

that's very, very, very good. And then there are apps for confession that will walk you through how to go to confession and how to check your heart and so forth. And then there's a lot of different devotions out there, like Novenas. There's a whole app for Novenas out there that's very, very helpful. And then finally, the USCB. You can go to the USCB and just really dive into a wealth of knowledge and information and guidance from the church.

Now, I know that I did not give all of them, and I know that right now you're thinking, ah, you missed my favorite. You missed my favorite. Well, why don't you write me then? And let me know. And maybe I'll mention it in a later show that you had an even better one,

and I'll add it to the list. My email is The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. The Jeff Kaven show, one word, the Jeff Kaven Show, at ascensionpress.com. And tell me what you have on your phone. But the point is this. Let's use them for the Lord. Let's kind of measure our usage. How often do we use

this just to goof off? And how many times do we use it as a tool as a disciple of the Lord? Love to hear about that from you. And I pray that this will give you a few ideas on how I use it. And I know you have others and look forward to hearing that. I really do. Encourage other people. share the show with others who maybe don't know that all these resources are available to them and accessible by their phone. So I hope that's helpful. And love you. Keep praying for me. I'll pray for you. And I look forward to talking to you next week. God bless.