NEW HOPE, Ky. — Every day, thousands of people are opening their e-mail to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Thanks to the Internet, the Church’s liturgical readings of the day are now easily available to everyone, from people on the go to shut-ins and even those deprived of Bibles.

We’re all kind of news hounds,” said Patrick Monaghan, co-founder of the website dailygospel.org. “The word Gospel means ‘good news.’ Rather than the Wall Street Journal, we’re giving you news right there in your mailbox to give you the mind and heart of the Church’s message that day. It’s really the news.”

In 2001, dailygospel.org was launched in Kentucky and in France, from where co-founder and President Gregor Puppinck operates.

News spread quickly, and subscribers to dailygospel.org’s free service reached 100,000 last year. This year they number 200,000. That doesn’t include those who go directly to the website.

The website is available in eight languages, including Arabic. Help maintaining the site comes from Catholics United for Life, based in New Hope, Ky., and several monasteries and convents, especially in Argentina, the Middle East and Europe.

Presently, the French and Spanish versions are the most advanced. While the English site currently carries the day’s Gospel reading, the French and Spanish include the full lectionary readings with responsorial Psalm, the saints of the day and a commentary from a Church Father.

These extras bring people the basic truths of the Church in an accessible way, Monaghan said. The service is working to bring the full readings and commentaries in all languages and plans to keep adding languages, including Vietnamese and Chinese.

Dominican Father Brian Mullady, theology professor at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., and a member of the Western Dominican Province Preaching Band, noted how people check their email now more that they read books.

“The daily reading up is a quick, easy way to prepare yourself for daily Mass,” he said. “It would be a wonderful addition to Magnificat, which helps with the same thing.”

Father Mullady knows the strength of media technology. He’s put out hundreds of CDs of talks and classes. They’re popular with commuters. “St. Dominic would be proud of that technology,” he said.

Preaching to Thousands

Two more websites are experiencing success similar to dailygospel.org’s results. Jay Dunlap, spokesman for the Legionaries of Christ, said a daily meditations e-mail from its lay apostolic movement Regnum Christi reaches 20,000 subscribers. It began just 3 1/2 years ago, and word-of-mouth is responsible for most of its success.

“John Paul II and Pope Benedict urge us to sanctify the modern means of communication to spread the Gospel,” Dunlap said. “The message is timeless, but the means have to keep up-to-date.”

Indeed, in his January 2005 apostolic letter “On the Rapid Development of Communications,” Pope John Paul wrote, “Do not be afraid of new technologies! These rank inter mirifica (among the marvelous things) that God has placed at our disposal to discover, to use and to make known the truth.”

Dunlap hears from those getting Regnum Christi meditations in places as far-flung as Asia, Africa and Papua New Guinea.

“On the one hand, it’s a testimony to the reach of the Worldwide Web,” Dunlap said, “and on the other hand, to the reach of the Gospel. It gives us a sense of the Church universal.”

Likewise, 10,000 people a day (and more than a quarter of a million a month) check out the daily readings posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, (www.usccb.org).

“It’s the most visited page on the USCCB website,” said Mary Elizabeth Sperry, associate director for permissions and New American Bible.

Typical users include lectors preparing to read, priests readying daily homilies, families reading together, catechists, teachers and Bible Study group members. Train and bus commuters print and carry the readings for their daily ride to work.

Commonly, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion to the homebound and those in nursing homes take copies of the readings with them, Sperry added. And people with impaired vision increase the size of the type and print out easy-to-read copies.

Sometimes the readings are interactive. People e-mail questions that often can be answered with a quick referral to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Regnum Christi site follows a slightly different format. With the daily Gospel reading, it includes introductory prayers centering on Christ’s life and three points of meditation, concluding with a resolution to perform some act of Gospel charity that carries the Gospel message through the course of the day. Legionary priests compose the meditations.

“I don’t know how many priests get the opportunity to preach to 20,000 people every day,” Dunlap said. “But any priest who has the opportunity to preach the Gospel to 20,000 people for a week solid would jump at the opportunity to do so.”

In Fort Wayne, Ind., Rebecca Grubbs has been a regular subscriber to this free e-mail. She particularly likes knowing the meditations are in her inbox early each morning. Then she can complete the meditations before she wakes her five small children.

It’s been a learning process in more ways than one. “I didn’t know how to do a meditation,” she said, “until I started receiving these. … It gives structure to your prayer life, and structure helps you to be more fruitful.”

“E-mail provides a direct, simple, easy reminder,” explained Catholic Radio Association President Steve Gajdosik. “Church bells ring to remind us of the Angelus. The Internet can do that now with e-mail telling us it’s time to pray.’”

Gajdosik sees a strength it has over some of the other media. People can immediately delve deeper. Through “searches or embedded links you can do a lot of research and come to know something far deeper.”

Penetrating Walls

Indeed, these free services are enriching spiritual lives and taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth as Jesus commissioned his apostles to do.

Sometimes “the ends of the earth” are near. Sperry remembered one family “who took them to grandmother’s home when they visited her so they could read them to her. That became part of their family prayer. It was their way of keeping their grandmother a part of the Church because she couldn’t get to Mass anymore.”

Other times, they’re behind walls blocking religious liberty. For instance, Sperry has received e-mails from readers in China.

This cyber mission territory is a major reason dailygospel.org is moving to have this free website in as many languages as possible — soon in Chinese.

“We have a medium with which we can reach to the different levels of persecution, whether subtle or heavy-handed,” Monaghan said.

“Here’s an opportunity where people in great straits can put together the Scriptures,” he added. “You can’t get the Bible in certain places, but the computer is ubiquitous.” People can even systematically copy and save readings.

“We’ve got a way of getting the Scriptures out and not worrying about Bible smuggling,” Monaghan said. Instead of having priests working underground as they once did in England, “we just put it on the Internet.”

People in oppressed sections of the globe can look directly at dailygospel.org’s website whenever, “read it, and carry it in their hearts.” Others can sign up to receive it directly via e-mail.

Either way, it all boils down to one basic Internet choice.

“In the morning,” Monaghan said, “do you want to look at the dismal news, or keep your eye on the prize?”

Joseph Pronechen is based in

Trumbull, Connecticut.