Free Prayer and Meditation Apps

Do you need help refreshing your prayer life? How about trying out some new apps? That way wherever you are, you can pull out your phone and have something help guide you through a meditation or prayer.

I have sat with different prayer apps and podcasts to find the ones that are the easiest to use and are totally free. There are plenty out there that don’t require any in-app purchases but you have to comb through to find them. Here are some of my recommendations below. Would love to hear in the comment section if any of these worked for you or if you have other recommendations.

Note: I have linked most of these to the apple app store but they are also available on google play and/or spotify.

Apps for Different Prayer Styles:

Practice the Examen:

Reimagining the Examen– This app gives you a menu of different focuses for the Examen each day so it never gets old. You scroll through it at your own pace and can choose different background sounds such as rain or music to calm you. There is even a Spanish version available. The only thing that I don’t like is that it is not voice guided so you could not do it while on a walk or driving in your car.

Practice Lectio Divina:

Lectio365– Created by 24/7 Prayer, this app guides you through a scripture reading each day that you can listen to or read and follow along. Each week has particular theme or focus. It includes features like: a pause button, notification reminders, ability to download to use offline, and a share button.

Other podcasts for the Lectio Divina are listed here.

Practice Imaginative Prayer with Scripture:

Imagine: A Guide to Jesuit Prayer– A 20 minute podcast leading you into your imagination in a scripture passage.

Pray-as-you-go– Under the section in the menu entitled Retreats and series, just click on Imaginative Contemplation Exercises. There are audio guided versions of a scripture passage read aloud and questions to help you imagine you are in the story. (This app is great for listening to a daily scripture passage each day as well. There are several other features on this app including some audio versions of the Examen.)

Practice Centering Prayer:

Centering Prayer by Contemplative Outreach– It includes guidelines, choices for an opening and closing prayer, and a timer that announces itself with your choice of sounds. Learn more about Centering Prayer on my blog post.

Practice Contemplation:

If you want to walk through a scripture slowly, try the Contemplative at Home podcast. The first 7 minutes are deep breathing and guided imagery and then she reads a scripture passage very slowly a couple of times.

Explore Peace Meditations podcast- Whitney Simpson guides you through a 5-15 minute meditation. Meditations include Yoga Nidra, Breath prayer, Imaginative prayer, Lectio Divina, and the Examen.

Guided Meditation App:

Insight Timer– This is my favorite app! It is totally free and has the hugest library of resources of any app that I have found. I love variety and choice and so this is perfect! You could listen to music, nature, tibetan singing bowls, binaural beats, or just set a timer to sit in silence. But for days that you need more guidance, you can choose from guided meditations filtered by topic or by particular meditation teachers that you follow. You can choose a meditation based on how much time you have. You can save favorites to return to. And it tracks how long and for how many days you meditate to give you that feedback that helps you to track how meditation is changing you.

Catholic Apps:

Laudate– This app has everything a Catholic could imagine from a library of prayers, daily readings with reflections and the Saint of the day, Liturgy of the Hours, Order of the Mass, Catechism, rosary and chaplet, and links to other catholic media and podcasts. You can even bookmark and save favorite prayers and novenas.

Divine Office– This gives you the liturgy of the hours for the day. And even though Laudate does too, this has 2 special features. First, you can listen to it read and sang by others instead of just reading it. And second you can look at a globe to see how many people in different countries are praying it with you at the same time. You can also share on facebook and twitter. It helps you feel connected to those around the world.

Rosary Apps are listed in my blog post: Praying the Rosary

About the Author: Julie Glaser is a healer who creates sacred spaces for people to share, release, and grow. She’s in the habit of being in awe and wonder and writes to share her own experiences and curiosities with other inquisitive souls in the process of transforming.