ECL vs DailyFormation

The Effective Catechetical Leader Series provides information, strategies, and approaches to ensure success for leaders of parish faith formation programs. These books include practical instruction and printable resources. They describe best practices for recruiting, training, and forming catechists; developing a vision for faith formation; forming an advisory board; planning and calendaring; networking with colleagues; selecting high-quality resources; handling administrative aspects of the ministry; and identifying the various groups you serve and how best to work with them. The ECL app puts wisdom and practical help at your fingertips. Drawn directly from the six books of the new Effective Catechetical Leader Series, ECL provides an opportunity for catechetical leaders to “check-in” and focus on specific pastoral issues and to identify go-to strategies for meeting the challenges of serving as an effective catechetical leader. For more resources, visit www.loyolapress.com/ECL.

Daily Formation is a contemplative reading app for Catholics who take their faith seriously. Each day, it opens to the Gospel assigned by the Church—drawn from the Roman Rite lectionary—paired with a reflection from Augustine or Aquinas that meets that passage with theological depth. No notifications. No streaks. No gamification. Just the text, the tradition, and the space to sit with both. What's inside: - Full Gospel text for every day of the year, with verse numbers - A virtue theme for each day (charity, humility, fortitude, prudence, and more) - A patristic or scholastic excerpt—Augustine's Confessions, City of God, the Summa Theologiae—selected to illuminate the day's passage - A brief contextual note connecting the Gospel to the day's theme - A calendar to navigate freely across the entire year Designed for serious formation, not spiritual entertainment. The pairing of Gospel and tradition is intentional. Augustine teaches that disordered love—loving lesser things as ultimate things—is the root of sin, not just bad behavior. Aquinas shows that reason and faith are not rivals but partners. Daily Formation is built on that conviction: that reading the Gospel through the lens of the Church's great teachers sharpens moral perception, not just devotional feeling. The design reflects the same philosophy. Warm parchment tones, serif scripture typography, and a drop-cap treatment for patristic quotes create an environment closer to a manuscript than an app. Dark mode supports evening prayer. There are no accounts, no social features, no data collection. For daily use: Open it in the morning alongside Morning Prayer or the Liturgy of the Hours. Read the Gospel. Let the patristic excerpt work on it. Return to it before Mass to meet the readings with some preparation. Use it during lectio divina as a starting point, not a replacement. Content: The app covers the full 2026 liturgical year with 365 pre-loaded daily entries. Gospel texts are bundled on-device—no internet connection required. Content draws on the Douay-Rheims translation and classic English translations of Augustine and Aquinas. Daily Formation is a tool for formation, not information. The goal is not to read more but to read more slowly, more attentively, and with better guides.