Liturgy and Computer Science

My training prior to entering the Society of Jesus involves the sciences. I took Computer Science as my major in the Ateneo de Manila University where I concentrated on developing multimedia applications. After that, I worked for a company called Infinity Information Systems doing financial web applications research and development for Spectrasoft. I was invited to teach in the Ateneo, and I took my Masters in Computer Science while I was teaching.

The Society of Jesus is quite known for being much involved in the Sciences. The Information Systems and Computer Science Department is housed in a building named after Jesuit, Fr. Federico Faura, who founded Manila Observatory and invented the aneroid barometer.

I am currently writing my masteral thesis in computer science as a final step for my degree. For my area of concentration, I decided to focus on Human Computer Interaction, particularly, user-interface design. I initially wrote about developing user interfaces for online learning systems and its effects on user attrition. Because of my philosophy studies, I was not able to finish writing.

I then decided to write on a new topic. It is on Liturgy and Computer Science. There are a number of parishes in Metro Manila that utilize LCD projectors and Microsoft Powerpoint within the liturgy. I have experienced times when the slides do not necessarily help me to pray, but actually distracted me. I then realized, that in some way, this is a different sort of user interface, where a user (the parishioner) responds to stimuli, but he/she responds using liturgical actions. There must then be a way to use this technology, to improve liturgy, as regards pariticipation, as regards retention, as regards the entire user experience.

My mentor Neo Gonzales, has been very helpful supplying me information, especially on psychology, memory, and HCI. Hopefull I finish writing soon.