The Mingy Prayerbook of prayers has helped thousands of soldiers to pray. The prayerbook has now been developed into an app.
Father Robert McCabe explains why:
“Sometimes soldiers put the prayer book in their pocket and then go to military training. After their training or exercises, they put their uniform into the washing machine and the prayerbook can be destroyed. So, because everybody has a smartphone nowadays, we said why not make an app for that?”
Thus this app “Mingy” was created to prevent the prayers from being destroyed by water. It’s an interesting name is a word that originates from Africa.
Father Robert, one of the app´s creators, is a priest of the diocese of Meath and has served as a military chaplain for 20 years. He has accompanied the Irish army to countries like Syria, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia or Chad. So, he has a firsthand experience of how it feels to be a soldier away from home.
Commenting on the prayerbook he said, “Soldiers appreciate being able to open up a little prayerbook and see the stained glass windows of their church when they are serving in Lebanon, in Golam Highs, or in Mali. They can open up the book and see these places of prayer.”
In addition to prayers, “Mingy” also contains spiritual scriptures and prayers of other religions for soldiers who are Muslims, Jews or Buddhists.
The app allows soldiers to keep in touch with loved ones. Many people use it to pray with friends and family.
The origins of the word Mingy are in Africa. In the 1960s, soldiers in the Congo used to go on patrol through different markets and would hear the local vendors shouting ‘mingy, mingy, mingy’ which means ‘we have many things for you, we have many things for you to buy here.’ The locals were selling vegetables and local produce. When the chaplains in the Irish army were trying to come up with the name for the prayers, they called it ‘Mingy prayerbook’ because they would have many, many prayers.
“Mingy” can be downloaded from the web at a link on militarychaplaincy.ie and is also available from the App Store for iOS and from Google for android devices.
ENDS
