Universalis

Liturgy of the Hours

The whole Liturgy of the Hours has been recorded specially for Universalis.

What is included

The Liturgy of the hours, spoken in English. Every Hour is included: the Office of Readings, Lauds (Morning Prayer), the daytime Hours (Terce, Sext and None), Vespers (Evening Prayer) and Compline (Night Prayer).

Every Hour of every day of every year is included. The total adds up to more than 100 hours of speech!

Live highlighting

As with all the audio in Universalis, each line is highlighted as it is spoken. Here is a short sample. Press the Play button, listen, and watch.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.
Give me again the joy of your help…

No Internet connection needed

You don’t need an Internet connection while you are listening.

Obviously the very first time you listen, you do need to be connected so that the app can download the audio files. When you press the Play button it will download the audio you need for listening, immediately. In the background it will start to download all the audio you will ever need. Once this process has been completed, you won’t ever need an Internet connection again.

Variable speed

The recordings are spoken at a steady reflective pace, such as is used when these passages are read out in church. However, if you prefer a slower speed or a faster one, the app allows you to adjust the speed of playback to suit your preference.


A monthly or yearly subscription

You can subscribe for £2.99 per month ($2.99 or €3.49) or £27.49 per year ($29.99 or €31.99). The App Store will tell you the exact amount before you confirm the subscription. You can cancel your subscription at any time. You can listen to a free sample before you buy.


How to listen

  1. In the Universalis app, go one of the pages for the Hours: Office of Readings, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers or Compline.
  2. You will see a Play button at the bottom left-hand corner. Press it.

If you have already subscribed, the voice will start to play at once and the display will highlight the words as it goes, so that you can follow the text as it is read.

The free sample

If you haven’t yet started a subscription, the Play button will make a menu pop up. Press “Listen to free sample” in the menu.

You will hear your chosen Hour for a fixed date – usually the date chosen for you will be Christmas Day. You can listen, and decide if you really want to subscribe.

How to subscribe

If you haven’t yet started a subscription, the Play button will make a menu pop up. Press “Find out more” in the menu.

A screen will appear giving details of the recording, and also the price of the subscription. If you want to buy, press the “Subscription” button and the App Store will handle your subscription. Apple will then charge you monthly or yearly –  whichever you have chosen –  until you tell them to stop.

In most cases your subscription will be free for a certain period (a week or a month) before Apple start to charge you. The App Store will tell you if this is the case. You can treat it as an additional free trial.

Already subscribed?

The app relies on the App Store to tell it what subscriptions you have. Very occasionally, the App Store fails to do this and the app doesn’t know that you have renewed your subscription. The Play menu will make a menu pop up. Press “Already subscribed” and the app will contact the App Store to verify that you still have a subscription.

How to cancel a subscription

We hope you won’t want to! But if you do want to, it’s easy. Go to this page and you will find the instructions you need.

Multiple devices

If you have more than one iOS device (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), you won’t have to subscribe twice. Whatever is subscribed to on one device becomes available on all the other devices that share the same Apple ID: this is Apple’s rule. But we have no way of arranging to share the audio between iOS and Android.