MIAMI | Check your email, take photos, play games and even pray, right from your mobile phone. There are apps for that — and one of them was created by a 16-year-old St. Brendan High School student.

iPray Catholic, a new application for Apple iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads, lets users access prayers on-the-go, from wherever they are.

Its creator is St. Brendan High School's Alejandrina Gonzalez, who will begin her junior year at the school in September. She said she found her inspiration while attending a school Mass earlier this year. Captivated by the idea all day, she began coding the app at home that same evening using a program called Xcode.

“The idea was to create an app that would help people pray, because sometimes we are too busy and can forget,” she said.

Now available for free on the iTunes App Store, iPray Catholic is meant to be simple and intuitive so that it is easy for people of any age to use. From the Act of Contrition to the Glory Be, from the Prayer of St. Francis to the Hail Mary, users are sure to find a prayer to suit their needs.

“Instead of only being distracted by their phones, now they can also find a reason to focus on it,” Alejandrina said.

The prayers are currently divided into four categories: Common Prayers, Special Prayers, Mary’s Prayers and Other Prayers, a “miscellaneous” section for those that do not fall into the available categories — yet.

Alejandrina said she plans to update and improve the app with the help of feedback from users. She wants to add additional prayers and categories and eventually a rosary component as well.

In addition to the prayers, there is a “Saint of the Day” feature, providing a brief description of the day’s selected saint. Users can set up alerts to get prayer reminders at selected hours of the day, and share selected prayers with friends and family via Facebook and email, directly from the app.

The next big step is to develop a Spanish-language version for users.

A self-taught developer, Alejandrina’s interest in creating apps began just a few months ago. She invested hours of online research to learn the process and finished the iPray project in only four days.

Prior to iPray, she developed an app named Flappy Space, which has received downloads from around the world. To play, users tap the screen to make an alien ship jump, while dodging moons and collecting stars.

“It’s like a puzzle. First I figure out what I want to get to, then I put the pieces together to get to that goal,” Alejandrina said.

“I tell her it’s like she learned a whole other language,” said her mother, Claudia Alejandrina Reyes. “She understood the logic, and it came easily to her.”

The feat is all the more remarkable because the Reyes family arrived in the U.S. from Mexico only five years ago, and Alejandrina is still working on perfecting her English.

Because she learned how to program on her own, and it’s a language no one else in her family understands, Alejandrina said it was difficult at times when errors came up that took her hours to fix. Despite the challenges, she was determined to finish.

“First and foremost, have an idea. Once you have one and you’re sure you want to go for it, you’ll do what it takes to get there,” Alejandrina said. “It was difficult, but you have to have a lot of perseverance because, without it, I wouldn’t have finished either of the two apps.”

“Some of her strongest traits are her resolve, perseverance and patience,” said her mother. “I think those are her driving qualities, along with a positive attitude. We very much admire that about her.”

Alejandrina’s favorite part of developing, however, is the design work. She sketched her own designs for the app and even snapped, edited and customized the photos — taken at Our Lady of Charity National Shrine in Miami — that grace the app’s layout.

She is part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Club at St. Brendan High, and although she has not yet decided what career to pursue in the future, she wants to continue developing apps as a hobby. Her plan is to design useful tools to help people with everyday tasks.