Pints With Aquinas - How Hallow Became the #1 App in the World (with CEO, Alex Jones) | Ep.515

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Alex is the CEO & Co-Founder of Hallow, a Catholic app for prayer, meditation, music, bible, and sleep. Hallow has over one billion minutes prayed, 18 million downloads, 500 million prayers prayed, 200,000 five-star reviews, and is the #1 Catholic app in the world. Over Lent, Hallow became the #1 app in the app store.

I care a lot more about me getting into heaven than Hallow having like a couple thousand extra users or whatever. So we take very seriously that everything on the app is in line with church teaching, it's authentically Catholic, and that we're trying to guide people in a spirituality and a relationship with the Lord that's in alignment with church teaching. And hopefully Hallow can be a tool for the church. We were praying about how to structure it and we were debating like having it be just a small business or like a nonprofit where we give everything away for free or a startup. Obviously Jesus is saying you take the one talent

and you try to multiply it to 10 or you try to multiply it to five. What I'd never really thought of before is the amount of risk involved in the person who went from one to 10. You're not putting it in a treasury bill. You're not like doing normal trades. You're doing like pretty crazy.

That's the startup. Like a startup goes from one to ten But what we do have is this unique opportunity to reach out to the folks who have most fallen away All right, so you're you went on Tucker Carlson show and you're coming here. Wow, this is this is very nice of you bigger than this This is Matt. Oh, yeah, very nice of you. You're not getting any bigger than this. This is Matt Pratt. Oh yeah, Tucker wishes he could get in the end. So what was that like?

Tucker was great. Yeah, I was pretty nervous because it was certainly the biggest interview I'd ever done. And he could have asked like a lot of very difficult questions. So like I was prepping. And his job, you know, I was joking with my dad. I was like his job at Fox was to make the most capable like public speakers look like idiots on national TV. Like that's just what he, like he'd come on and he'd be like, no, you're wrong for this and this and this. And he was very good at it. And so I was like, you know, I was prepping all these different questions with all these different things, I

had my team, like, try to psych me out, because it's kind of hard to, I hate public speaking, I hate doing any of this stuff. But it's kind of hard to like, practice getting nervous for something, you know, and then talking through it. And so I was like, I had my the whole Halo team. And I was like, Okay, I need all of you to be here, because that'll make me nervous. And I know some of you, whatever, agree with certain things, whatever, have different opinions and so I know some of you will be mad or whatever.

And so I had somebody who was a big Tucker fan ask me a question in front of everybody or ask me a few questions, do you like the start of the interview where I was nervous? And he came up with some pretty good ones that were pretty tough, like explained to me the evolution of the church's teaching on the death penalty and why. And like Tucker asking that would be... Anyway, so there's a lot of really tough questions, like as a Catholic you would have to answer, which I'm sure there are infinitely better people than I am to answer them. And but anyway, he was incredibly kind. It was just about Hallow and his family, his wife uses he was incredibly kind. It was just about Halo and his family,

his wife uses the app every day. It was, we got to have breakfast before, and he was like, Alex, I wanted to let you know that my wife, that we do breakfast here before all of my shows. I've had like the most incredible people here that you could imagine from the world's perspective. And my wife has not wanted to come to any of these

breakfasts, and she said she has to come to this one. And she like prays with the app every day. And he uses the app, loves it. And so it was honestly a fascinating conversation for him, mostly about, like it seemed like real genuine interest in like Catholic spirituality. But maybe not framed that way, but like fasting and prayer and silence

and contemplative and meditative life. And so it was cool. Catholic spirituality, but maybe not framed that way but like fasting and prayer and silence and contemplative and meditative life and So it was cool. He was yeah, he was very kind very generous. It was it was very nice of him to take it easy on me So how did that come about? I'm gonna ask you a question which you might not be able to answer but was it like a Sponsorship thing where you went to him with a ton of money you went interview me Certainly not I would never do that. He reached out to us when he left Fox. And he said, I am starting a new show.

And I am only going to have sponsors on the show. It was his COO, or his number two. I think there was only one other person at the Tucker Carlson Network wouldn't because I don't think it had formed then but they reached out and said hey you know there's only so many people were willing to partner with for this we just left Fox we want to start a new thing do you want to partner together and I was like I'm certainly open to for us it's anybody who's willing to share about Jesus as an honor. And so he called me for like 30 minutes and it was a fascinating conversation, but he was essentially like, look, I only want to promote products I actually like and I actually

use and I trust and that leaves like four or five products and you guys are one of them and so can I, you know, share about you on my show. And I was like, sure. And then he was like, you know, it's interesting. Like, you know, I've met all these people who are on fire for their faith recently, and they just all happen to be Catholic. And he was like, you know, and he,

so we talked about like what it means to be Catholic for a little bit on the phone, and he was like, you should come on my show. And I was like, yeah, you know, there's much better people that have on your show than me, but I'm, you know, if you want me to, I'm happy to. And so then it was like two months later and we did, it booked it to whatever.

I know exactly what you're talking about, about preparing for any kind of question. Sometimes it's to your disadvantage though. I was in, I used to live in Ireland and I was asked to come on this radio show, this popular radio show in Belfast when we used to live there, we used to live in Ireland. And I had a friend be like, he's gonna grill you.

Cause it was about my work with anti-punography stuff. And so I got really nervous, and I started like freaking out and running all the objections in my head and I Really think if I hadn't have thought about it and I had I've just woken up at 3 in the morning the interview would have Went way better But I thought you did a really good job. You did an excellent job. You just why because you just kept talking about Jesus Well, that's like it was so simple. It was so pure. I loved it for me

It's just I mean again like of the people in the church who could talk about the church or Catholic spirituality or whatever, I'm like the last on the list. The only expertise I have in any way is the stuff that we've heard through Hallow and then my own journey. And so I was like, you know, and it's tempting often when people like ask a question to just speak as though you're teaching, or maybe don't tie back to why you think that. So somebody will be like, so why is silence important? And you'll just be like, well, because this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason.

But for me, it's like, well, but actually think what has silence done for me in my life? Or what has the Eucharist done for me in my life? Or what do we see through Hallow, through through the stories, like the actual experience that I can share. So that, I mean, I certainly needed the practice or whatever, because I just wanted to make sure I didn't say anything that wasn't in line with the church. And so anyway, we'd make sure. I gained a much deeper, it was funny because we didn't talk about any of them, but I gained a much deeper understanding of like every topic through there, which I still am wildly unqualified to talk through.

And a lot of your conversations help, so I appreciate, we owe you. What do you mean? I'm just gonna turn this off. What do you mean? You do a great job of just articulating the church's teaching on things in a way that isn't abrasive or aggressive.

I think what's fun about the show is we have a diversity of wonderful people. Yeah. And they do it, yeah. Yeah, they do it. I throw wood on the fire. You do a decent job. Yeah, and I also think it's so important.

And this is something I've learned over time. Stop me if you heard the story. But I was on this panel in Canada with Jason Everett and these other people. People were asking us questions. And someone asked a story, but I was on this panel in Canada with Jason Everett and these other people, people were asking us questions and someone asked a question and I did not know the answer. It had to do with some historical issue within Christianity. But I did not let my ignorance stop me from answering.

And I launched into this question, into this answer. I had no idea what the hell I was talking about. And I could feel people realizing. I don't know if that makes sense. I could feel the room realize I'm full of it. And even at that point, I could have pulled the rip cord and went, I'm sorry, I don't know. And I didn't even know.

Instead, I just kept talking, thinking, I will land this plane. And it just crashed and burned. And I was so depressed that night. And it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. And I've just thought, you know, one of the most excellent answers you can ever give is, I don't know. I don't know enough about that to talk about it.

Like I was on Shapiro's show, and he asked me about monarchy. And I'm like, I don't know. So talk to someone else. But that's so great, because no one can corner you after that.'m like, I don't know. So talk to someone else. But that's so great because no one can corner you after that. I just said, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, so it's great. It's, I agree the best times of my life in retrospect have certainly been the most humbling. The issue is my dad. So my dad's a lawyer. My dad is like, I love my dad to death is in terms of like the heroes of my life. It's like saying to that outside

of whatever Jesus and Mary and Joseph. It's the sanctuaries of Evelyn, my dad essentially in terms of how to be a cadet. But he's a lawyer and so like his job is to like speak with confidence even when he doesn't really. And so he'll be like, you know, get thrown into some like AI litigation thing or something. He's like, you know, I'm like 65 years old. I have no idea.

But they like ask, hey, Jeff, what's your, you know, what should we do about this? So you have to like, anyway, so he's very good at speaking about things that he knows nothing about while making it seem like he knows what he's talking about, which is impressive. But anyway, I agree. Your way is probably better, especially when it's the spiritual life. Well, I guess it depends, right it would be in it would be inappropriate I suppose for a lawyer or let's say the president like I don't know I don't know you gotta learn how to be like look You know, yeah, you know, you understand this. Yes, and I guess I guess I understand that there's a rhetorical

You know game there that you have to play maybe in certain instances, but not when it comes to... Yeah. Plus for me, it's an easy... I'm not a priest. I'm not a bishop. I'm not a... I just...

No Jesus. So in the backend of whatever the backend looks like where you see how many people are downloading your app every day, what did it look like the week after Tucker's show? Was it a secret? It was crazy. It was, it was, gosh, there was some crazy stat on this, but, um, I think it was like everything other than really the Super Bowl commercial. It was a bigger spike. Um, it was a bigger spike than on the first day.

And it was three days of the same spike. Because it's like the podcasts, but podcasts kind of people slowly listen to them a little bit over time. But yeah, it was crazy. So like three days of our second biggest spike ever. For free, which was awesome. And it didn't have to pay a Super Bowl commercial. It's so crazy.

If you had have told me, when did I start from, like back in the early days, I started promoting. We have not partnered with anyone for this long at all. So tell everybody why you continue to plaza with me, Alex. Anyone wants to advertise with Matt Fred. The, I don't know. I mean, honestly, we just, we track,

I mean, for us again, it's like, we want, Hallow's goal is to reach out to the folks Especially the folks who have most fallen away But really anybody who's interested in Christian spirituality and so we reach out with a bunch We have a bunch of different advertising things a bunch of different marketing things and in the early days You know, we couldn't afford to do like a TV ad or anything like that. And so it was just Like influencers individual influencers in some Facebook ads or Google ads or something like that to try to reach out to folks. Most of it still comes through people telling other people about it, friends and family talking about it.

But you were one of the first, mostly because we were just a fan of your show. And it's funny, we have like a hundred people full time on the team, and I bet at least fifty of them, we say, hey, how did you first hear about halloween? Come on, isn't that beautiful? It's so cool. It's a gift. I'm like a gateway drug. Yeah, no, it's awesome.

I get people hooked on to halloween and the Dominican. I just got a tweet. I was going to text you this yesterday, but somebody responded to, there was somebody posted on X about converting to the faith, or no, they said, I'm a Protestant, but I love the halloween. I've been praying with it. My five-year-old and I are starting to pray the rosary pretty interested in the Catholic faith and then I you know reposted that or whatever and then somebody replied and said this is my same story I heard about like Catholic spirituality through hallow and Matt Fratton converted to

praise God isn't it like five years it's funny you and I were having a coffee earlier and we were saying that on the internet, no one has like a median opinion about me. They either think I'm a normie gay communist. Okay. Or like you change my life. It's really weird if you were to start gauging your identity based on YouTube comments. No, it's humbling though.

It'll keep you down. Oh, but it's, yeah, it is huge. But I mean, it's so easy to promote Halo because I mean, I don't know if you remember this, I interviewed an ex Antifa member. I remember this, it's beautiful. Right. Who heard about Halo on pints and started praying the rosary and his whole life changed. And Andrew Claven, do you know this? No. I had him on the show, gave him a rosary. And he tweeted that he's started praying the rosary a couple of times.

And then on a backstage, he talked about how he was using Halo to do it. Oh, no way. I had no idea. That's so cool. I love Andrew. No, you're great. He was so kind.

I don't know what it is about. It's literally, I mean, for us, it's whatever. We're big fans of your work, but mostly we're not going to lose money anyway. You got to believe. It just works. You just got to believe in what you're promoting, and then you're not really selling it. You're just like telling people about this cool secret, which Hallow is not anymore.

What I was going to say is 20 years ago, I would not have believed that the number one Christian app could have been a Catholic app. Yeah. No, it's cool. So kudos. Catholics. I mean, I don't know. The church is just so beautiful. And the spirituality that we have, it feels like we,

I don't know, I like to think a little bit like we've led for a while with the church of like, it felt like, I don't know, explaining ourselves. Like, hey, we're defending the reasons why we're Catholic from attacks of why are you Catholic, which is mostly like theological or whatever, which is great and beautiful and true. But then we also have this, I think we haven't really led, or we have this opportunity to lead with the beauty of the spirituality of the faith. And I think like, people are just so hungry for that. And like, you know, how so rarely do we think about St. Teresa of Adler, St. John on the Cross, like real mysticism, real contemplative life when I think about,

at least for me, when it feels like we're evangelizing. And like that for me, I think is what people are hungriest for. And it's what we're seeing. But it's cool. It's just for us, we just get to share what the church has had for a thousand, two thousand years with the world and people find it really powerful, which is like the rosary. Like we didn't, you know, we didn't do anything. The rosary took us like 30 minutes to record in a little seminary in New Orleans and we did that what five and a half, six years ago and it's you know either number one or number two always on hallow forever. Just the same whatever four mysteries repeated. It's like no matter what we do, Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Rumi, whatever, it's just like

the rosary, you don't beat the rosary. I mean, so, you know? You guys are doing something right. If you can lead people to a historic, solid devotion, and that's the most popular thing on your app, despite these big names you're getting on there. I think it was like 77 million rosaries have been prayed through the app or something

in the last five years. Isn't that crazy? God is so good. And we have this phenomenal team who does amazing work at me right now. It's such a fun role because all I get to do is like I boast on behalf of the Lord and our team because I literally do nothing other than sit here and talk to you about it. But no, it's fun. And it's to your point actually earlier about the internet having... it's funny for Hallow it's the same. It's like you either love it or hate it.

And that's fine actually. In the earliest days I've never been very Hallow, it's the same. It's like you either love it or hate it. And that's fine, actually. In the earliest days, I've never been very good at pitching Hallow. You do a much better job of it than I do. But my mom thought it was a terrible idea the first, like my mom takes her faith super seriously, like a saint of a woman, deeply spiritual. And I tried to tell her this idea. And she was like, oh, that's like five and a half years

ago, she was like, oh, that's a really cool idea. Or no, she didn't say that. She was like, it's really great that you're coming back to your faith. Like, you know, great, because you were terrible and now you're like, you found Jesus, so hopefully he fixes it. And she was like, but this is a terrible idea.

Nobody's gonna use an app to pray. And I was like, yeah, I mean, honestly, it's a hard thing to pitch. It's like, well, you're right, you don't need an app to pray. And there's like all these beautiful prayers that you do in silent, even the rosary. Like, I love praying the rosary on my own, just with the beads. I love sitting in silence just for 20, 30 minutes, and later to the hour just with the book. I mean, there's all these ways to pray, you certainly, and you don't need an app to pray. It's not like, you know, Google Maps

or something. And it's really hard to pitch. It's like, well, no, but there's something about like closing your eyes and plugging in your headphones and then being led in this meditation by Father Mike or Jonathan Rumi or Sister Miriam or whatever. Like there's something really nice. It's like a retreat. But all of those things, like the pitches just you just have to try it. For me, at least that's the main pitch is just like for my mom. Now she uses it all the time and sends me a text every day when we have a bug in the app. So that's my main relationship with my mom through the app. But the internet thing that you said is,

we had this story, it's so long ago now that I, but we, about loving or hating, what came to mind was, so we reached out to Peter Kreeft to do what we used to call sleep stories on the app for this is again. We had like two yeah I was I did song of songs. Yeah, you did song song. You know, it's amazing about my way I don't know if it was amazing, but my wife listens to that while I'm traveling. No way. Isn't that so beautiful? Well, it's romantic. Yeah, come on. Yeah, the The best one though is Dr. Scott Hahn.

People need to go listen to Dr. Scott Hahn's sleep story. The joke I would always tell is I'd be listening to him at like 2 in the morning when I couldn't sleep, and then I'd see him in the morning and blush. Yeah, no. I mean, the tough part for me is I know everybody who's on the app. And so the early days, Francis is a good friend of mine,

and he was the first voice that did most of the recording. And so I would pray with him like all the time and then and our whole team does actually and in like, you know, very intimate settings. So, you know, you'll be in bed with your wife like falling asleep and you'll have like Francis in your ear talking to you. But anyway, Peter, Peter Kreeft, we reached out and was like, hey, would you be interested in recording one of these sleep stories? And it was during COVID. And he was like, he replied, unless you are intent on destroying the church by framing from within,

by framing Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior as a sleeping pill, no, I don't wanna be a part of this in any way. And I was like, I was like, hang on. I was like, huh, you know, honestly, yeah, Sleep Stories is a terrible title for that. Oh my gosh, what a burn from Peter Crave. And so I was like, well, okay, you know, there's no, you obviously hate us, so there's no way that you're ever going to do anything with us. But we just, as we have decided to change it just to Bible stories and have them

be like, you know, nighttime Bible stories. It's not like to make you fall asleep. It's not like a sleeping pill. It's just to close your day with Scripture in a way that isn't like yelling at you, but it's like peacefully said. And he was like, okay, I'll record one. Is that one on the app? Well, we tried to, but... He's so bad with technology. People don't realize this. They think he's exaggerating. He has no clue how to turn on a computer. We just sent a mic with the thing, but he was like, I can't.

I'm not. I can't figure it out. I'm too old for this crap. Fall asleep on your own. Well, anyway, love it or hate it. Those are cool things. Well, I'm sure you have many older folks, like your mother, who listen to this show. But I do think a lot of trying to understand this concept is a generational thing.

Cause people will tell me, I listened to your show for a while and it changed my life. I don't understand what that means. I've never watched an episode of anything and had my life changed. So I don't know if it's nothing. I don't know. I mean, I've listened to shows...

It's all just bad books or something? You know what it is? It might just be because I'm out of those formative years. It might just be that. That probably is it. Yeah. I mean, I've listened to shows and I'm like, oh, that's a good point. And I've remembered it, but I've never thought my whole life has changed now. And again, maybe if I was 16 or 17, where everything's up in flux, and you're still trying to decide where you're going and who you are and what direction to go.

Or like when you're first coming back to your faith. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's it. There's, yeah, because it's an interesting point because there was a lot of stuff for me when I was first coming back, but that was like six, seven years ago. And there was a bunch of shows, a bunch of Father Mike stuff,

a bunch of debates between, you know, the old school Scott Hahn or Protestant Catholic debates or whatever. So there was a bunch of debates between, you know, the old school Scott Hahn or yeah, um, Protestant Catholic debates or whatever. So there was a bunch of stuff that, but now mostly it is books for me now. I actually, honestly, hello. I mean, I listen to how all the time. So it, it like sister Mary, I'm 33 day Marian consecration on the app has changed my, I didn't know you had that. Tell me what that is. So good. I'm so we launched it and it was funny cause we, um, good. I'm so we launched it and it was funny because we

well and what version did she use same? To Monfort, she used the kind of shorter demon fit 40 and one that little yellow brown. He it's it's Yeah, yeah, it's it's but she adds her own. She adds her own pieces to it. But it's Oh, gosh, it's so good. So we had launched it, we recorded it like two years ago, and we did a little launch of it, and then I was just sitting in adoration after Christmas, after Christmas Day during the Christmas season. And I was just praying, I was like, I want to do, there's a statue of Mary, the Blessed Virgin there, and I was just like, I want to do a Mary in consecration. And so then I texted our team and I was like, let's relaunch the Sister Miriam thing on Jan 1,

her feast day. And we're like, okay, let's do it. And it was like the biggest spike since outside of Adventurland that we've had of just people praying it. And so I'm way behind, so what are we in now, February? But I've got like five or six days left in it and so it's 33 days. Yeah, but it's so oh, I love She's so she's been so instrumental in my life that at one point I told her from now on I'm calling you mother Miriam She's been a mother to me. She's so beautiful

And I will fight with a sword anyone who criticizes her. The coolest thing we have. So Sister Miriam, Mother Olga, Sister Bernice. Do you know Mother Olga or Sister Bernice? Are they from the same order? No, they're all three different. Oh, Mother Olga? Yes, Mother Olga. Yeah, she was at the conference in Stubendal.

Yeah, she was. She's beautiful. My wife fell in love with her. It's just like Mother Teresa in the flesh. It's just so. She's lovely. And she'll just call you and it'll just be like this, oh, it just feels like you're being spoken to by a saint.

Which one? She's criticizing you. But gosh, she's like a mother. Sister Miriam is just, she does these imaginative prayers and she's doing them for Lent, each Wednesday of Lent. But she does these imaginative prayer sessions that are just, oh, they just make you open. Just we open, just just weep just open and it's just such a beautiful... It's really hard actually to lead imaginative prayer because like, I

don't know, you need the right voice, but mostly you can like, you need this like very advanced spiritual life that you can then walk people through. And there's just something like you can feel it in her voice, you know? Like there's something new. Because it's easy to, I think, to come off as patronizing. Yeah. Okay guys, so we're just gonna. Imagine Jesus next to you.

You know if my voice did that, you'd be like, what, no, I don't think he's gonna. But you're right, it is her voice, but it's also, she just loves our Lord. But like you can tell, for us, how early days it was like, you could hire voice actors to do this, certainly. And most of the prayer apps are mostly voice actors. But for us, it was like, no, you really need somebody. You need somebody who's got a great voice because you don't want nails

on a chalkboard or whatever, but you need somebody who really believes it, who's really praying. That's why Jonathan's so good at this stuff, because it's like, he's really passionate about it. And so, for Lent, it's the way and then it's the story of Tekashi Nakao, which is incredible story. But so he's like going through it and praying it and telling the story as he's reading it. He's like, gosh, this is just like, but it's such a beautiful, you need to, you know, you can tell like authenticity, even in just audio, you can tell, I think. But yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so I'm really bad at like Hollywood names, but you got the guy who was from Guardians of the Galaxy. What's his name? Star Lord. Yeah, that's his official name. Seriously, what's his name? Chris Pratt.

Yes. Okay, how did you get Chris Pratt? What did that look like? How do you even, I mean, you give me as much details as you want, but I'm sure you don't just call up Chris Pratt. I sold my left arm. That's... Cool.

No, he posted about randomly. He has like 45 million Instagram followers, so. That'll do. Like Mark has 25 million or something, which is, I mean mean they're both obviously massive but he posted about doing Father Mike's Bible in a year on hallow. Are you kidding? So he just this was like two years ago he posted a screenshot just going through all the Father Mike's Bible in a year he was like day he was like day 160 or something on it when he posted about it. We've got Protestants! See sorry to cut

you off I want to get back to what you're saying but I wanted to circle back to what you said earlier because I thought it was really profound. It felt like for the longest time, Catholics were in defensive mode, right? Beating off objections from Protestants. And that's where we spent our time. Dude, we are on the offensive. We are bringing the gospel. Hello, Father Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents. We could go on. Yeah, well, yeah. Jonathan Rumi. Yeah, exactly. EWTN. It's also just this, like the more you dive into it, the more you see the beauty of the spirituality of it. And so it's just like, sorry, Bishop Barron, should have said that. Bishop Barron. Pope Francis. Yeah, we're

just rushing ahead with this beauty. All right, Chris Pratt, he posted about Father Michael. And so we reached out to his team and we just said, hey, would you be open to helping invite people into prayer in some more serious way? We think, you know, thanks for posting about it. And he was like, yeah, I use the app every day. It's awesome. It's changed my life. Father Mike's incredible.

This, like, Bible in a year, which, like, Father Mike goes through the whole, you know, like it's... And he's not holding back the Catholic No, it's like real intense like John 6 from a Catholic perspective. It's everything and But anyway it does for all of these folks and it's hard for us like as It's one of the things I talk about just because it's it's hard for us as people who are like deeper in their faith Or who have been and I've only been for whatever, six, seven years, but who have been for a bit of time,

it's hard to understand how crazy hard it is for people in Hollywood or tech or whatever, like that the whole world is against it. Like still, even though it feels like it's changing a little bit, it's so, it takes real courage to be like, no, I'm going to stand up and be like, hey, you guys should pray. Or like, you guys should meet Jesus. Like that, I'm going to use this platform I have. And so there's just so many systems and so

many things that in Hollywood that are trying to be like, no, like, let's just focus on our careers. Let's just, and not even just specifically with Chris, but with everybody that we work with from a Hollywood perspective. And I don't know, we also get this. Hallow's goal is the core, the soft spot of our mission is to reach out to the folks who have most fallen away. That's why I think God has us doing this thing. There's a bunch of resources for everybody. We have a bunch of folks who are on the app who take their faith very seriously.

I use the app every day. I take my faith very seriously. It's a bunch of resources for everybody. We have a bunch of folks who are on the app who take their faith very seriously. I use the app every day. I take my faith very seriously. It's an honor. We have monks and priests and bishops and nuns who are praying with the app every day. But I think why God has Hallow existing is to reach out, to be something that can reach out to folks that are usually really hard to reach out to for the church. And so the vast majority of the content on the app is, you know, it's Sister Miriam or it's Father Mike or it's Bishop Aaron or it's some mother Olga or it's some spiritual guide, Jonathan does a bunch of content reading scripture, but it's some, what we would call a spiritual guide. But then what we've seen be really beautiful is getting to partner with somebody like Mark Wahlberg or Chris Pratt and

they have the courage to be like, hey, I'm gonna use my platform to invite other people to prayer and like, you know, we have a ton of stories for the last whatever two three years that we've been working with Mark of people who haven't been to church in 10-20 years who just are scrolling on Instagram who just stop and say that's what that's like the guy from these movies I know talking about Mary or talking about Jesus. I might as well give it a try even though I don't know what it is. And then they meet Jesus for the first time. And it's just like, ah, what a blessing. But it takes real courage. So anyway, it's a long conversation with a bunch of different parties. These people are each, you know, like their own companies

essentially because they're massive And so it takes a long time but then finally or eventually, you know He was like, you know what? I just I want to do this So we're gonna do this and he is just like we recorded with him for lent he does these fasting Fridays with mark on Fridays and he was so good it was so his he was like I've done a bunch of voiceover work and I don't enjoy voiceover work as much as on-camera work because it feels more like I'm just working, it's less like I'm really involved. For some reason there was just something different here. I loved this. This was an hour where I just got to be engrossed in scripture and just the Lord and like what a blessing that was. But anyway, it was hilarious because he's,

we tried to write some funny stuff, but he's pretty funny. He's much funnier than I am. And so he like starts off these Friday sessions with Mark, Mark'll... Are they together in a room recording? No, we try to make it feel like they're together in a room, but Mark was... Did you fly out to record him? Yeah. Mark was in London in Paris shooting a movie, so we went there to record with him, and then Chris was in LA.

But anyway, Mark starts by... I probably won't deliver it as funnily as they do, but he starts by saying like, you know Hey guys this year because mark always does these fasting challenges it's a different fasting challenge each week so that through lent we can kind of fast from the different things that are holding us back and Says like this year I'm gonna be joined by Chris Who has an Avenger as Star Lord? You know knows a thing or two about like discipline and fasting and whatever but just to be clear like I'm the main guy like Chris is the second guy, like he's me first. Like I'm the main discipline guy

and then we had just prayed the Litany of Humility on Ash Wednesday and so he's like I guess I'll have to pray the Litany of Humility a couple more times and then Chris comes back and we didn't write any of this really for Chris and he was just like man Mark like I am really looking forward to watching you grow in humility. If you can grow in humility, that will prove that we truly have an awesome God who's capable of miracles. Maybe a few fewer selfie videos, maybe

a couple with your shirt on. Amazing. But anyway, it was, I don't know, for us, it's just fun to get to, you know, the vast majority of Lent, again, is like, it's Jonathan, it's this incredible Japanese priest, it's Father Mike, Sister Miriam, and then Cardinal Sarra on Saturdays goes through his kind of silence, he wrote this book, Power of Silence, so he kind of teaches us how to sit in silence and the beauty of silence and all this stuff, which is beautiful recording.

But then to get to have Mark or Chris or whoever it is, invite people into prayers, just like you just see this. It can reach out to folks who haven't, you know, who haven't encountered the Lord in decades. So it's cool. It's a blessing to get to work with them. What was it like getting Cardinal Seurat? And if you don't mind, tell people about the criticism you received recently about Fahd al-Sarra? I told you this off here, but I got an email. We get Twitter and emails and everything is a very humbling place. So we appreciate it.

It helps us grow closer to the Lord. And we appreciate any feedback from anybody. But we got an email that said, I'm canceling Hallow because, which was just directly to me, which was a funny one, but I'm canceling Hallow because you guys had a female cardinal on the, because you're having a female cardinal on the app. And so that you're aware the Catholic Church does not support or approve any female priests or bishops or cardinals.

And I reply, like, I reply like, I really appreciate you taking the time to send me this note. Cardinal Robert Seurat is a man. Not, not, not a fit, not a fit. It's not Sarah. It's not Cardinal Sarah. But anyway, he was, we reached out to him, like last minute, and where does he live?

In Rome. He lives in Rome, okay. that's where we recorded at least and It was you know, it's it's it's an interesting one because it's like he's like well No, like, you know, I don't want to do like a YouTube show about Disconnecting from the noise, you know, and I was like, yeah No, I totally like I agree that the point like the app is The app is about trying to disconnect from the noise like that's what we're trying to do But you know totally fine if you don't want to do it if that's you know, and he was like, okay

like yes, and and especially if it's you know, just the audio and whatever and so we flew over there and This was Alessandra. My co-founder went over there with one of our audio engineers we have this these two folks on our team are international folks who did a great job working with him and his team and recorded with him. It was funny. They were like, they were in the Vatican and so there's all this, there's all this noise and like whatever, it's a very bad audio quality. So we're like, it's gonna be tough to do the power of silence with. But I think our audio engineers cleaned it up pretty good, so it's good. But we also had someone on our team.

This is the other cool part about Halo is you have these folks on the team who just have these. We have our illustrator who obviously creates illustrations for the app, which are beautiful. But then everybody on the team has these unique GIFs. And we had someone who is a product designer who also makes icons, just makes icons, like paints them. gifts and We had someone who is a product designer who also makes Iconic icons just makes icons like paints them and so

Actually the our our international guy had purchased one for his wife as a gift and we're like Can we bring a gift to the Cardinal and he was like, well, maybe my wife will sacrifice the icon that I just purchased from Another employee on the team and so we brought him this icon of Jesus. It was really beautiful. But it was cool. I think that, I mean, his book is incredible. And then it kind of like leads you into this time of really just silence to be with the Lord, which like the coolest things we see at Hallow do just happen in silence. Like it's just these stories of, of like the Lord reaching out to people and sharing them. Like, we had this one young woman who had never heard that she was beautiful because she was 20-something years old and had never heard that she was beautiful from anybody

in her life, which, like, as a father of a four-year-old girl, breaks my heart. But she, like, prays in silence, like a 10-minute of silence thing on the app. She had heard a gospel, but then spends, like, 10 minutes in silence on the app. And she just hears the Lord say, stand up and go to the mirror, and she goes, and she silence thing on the app. She had heard a gospel but then spends like 10 minutes in silence on the app. And she just hears the Lord say, stand up and go to the mirror, and she goes, and she says, you are beautifully and wonderfully made. Do you think I make mistakes? Just like, you know, not in the recording, not anything, just him speaking to her. And it was the first time she'd heard that she was anything other than ugly. And it's just like, oh, God just does such cool things in the silence. So anyway, for us, it's like being able to work

with Cardinal Surah, who wrote this incredible book on silence and then try to lead people in silence, I think will be really powerful. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, how do you respond to criticism of those who say you really shouldn't be having people like Chris Pratt on the show or Liam Neeson on the show, because maybe they're not fully born in Catholics

or maybe they have a checkered past or I'm sure you've, I know you've gotten a lot of that. What is Hallow's kind of response to that? Yeah, like somebody asked me the other day, like some journalist asked like, do you have you have you made mistakes at Hallow? No. And I was like, I never make like 20 mistakes every day.

So yes, we make a bunch of mistakes and we learn and we try to get better. And it is very important for Hallow to always be, like I am Catholic, I care a lot more about me getting into heaven than Hallow having like a couple of thousand extra users or whatever, like that. And I, so we take very seriously that everything on the app is in line with church teaching, it's authentically Catholic, and that we're trying to guide people in a spirituality and a relationship with the Lord that's in alignment with church teaching. You know, for me, the most compelling person I spoke to about the Eucharist or about confession that changed my own life was the Lord.

Like I thought it was all crazy. Like I disagreed with the church on like 20 different things, politically or sacramentally or whatever. I thought it was all crazy until I like really spent time in prayer and the Lord just radically changed my heart. But anyway, for me, our goal at Hallow is to try to lead you into a relationship with the Lord and do it in a way that's in line with church teaching. At the same time, and this goes back to the very beginning of Hallow,

we were praying about how to structure it. And we were debating like having it be just a small business that would be like what's called a lifestyle business where we can go and whatever, relax and golf and hang out and chill. Or like a nonprofit where we give everything away for free or a startup. And those are kind of the things that we were debating. How does a startup distinguish from these other things? Well there's, it's, there's, there's, it's a combination of a bunch of different things. There's an illegal entity structure,

so how you decide to set up the thing is like an LLC, or a C Corp, or a public benefit corporation, or a nonprofit. And then there's what kind of funding you raise. And so as a small business, you would raise very different, or like a lifestyle business, you would raise very different funding than a startup. A startup, if you structure yourself as a startup, or if you call yourself a startup, what you're saying essentially is like,

what I'm trying to do is build something big, from the secular perspective. What I'm trying to do is build something big, and I know that there's a 95, 98% chance that it'll fail, that it won't be anything. And what that does is you then partner with, whatever, typically startup investors who are trying to build that kind of business, like are trying to do that themselves,

who are trying to say, okay, look, I'm gonna invest in 100 different things, I know that 90, 95 of them won't work, and five of them will work, and maybe the next will be the next, whatever, in the secular world, like Facebook or Apple or whatever. And I actually really wanted to do something where I could like relax and golf and chill, you know, like that. I don't I have no desire to be like to be a CEO of a big company. That sounds terrible to me. I have no desire to be like famous or anything like that. All that sounds awful. The and

so I really wanted to build something either like as a nonprofit where we just give it away for free and keep like a small run like a small business nonprofit or like have it be a small business lifestyle business. But we ended up praying about it, me and my co founder, and we both prayed about this 10 talents passage, which, you know, I'd never thought of in this way before that moment where you know, obviously Jesus is saying you take the one talent you try to multiply it to ten or you try to multiply it to five and the one person buries their talent in place plays it safe and

What I'd never really thought of before is the amount of risk involved in the person who went from one to ten or from one To five like those aren't it's interesting because nobody fails like nobody loses their talent, you know in the person who went from one to ten or from one to five. Like those aren't, it's interesting because nobody fails, like nobody loses their talent, you know, in the parable, which maybe there's a story there. It's obviously not about money, it's about like the gifts that God gives you. And you know, if you take risks with the gifts that God gives you, maybe he doesn't let you fail

from the God's perspective, obviously not from the secular perspective. But for me, it was like, they must have taken on an incredible risk to go from one coin to five or one to ten. Like that's not, you're not putting it in a treasury bill. You're not like doing normal trades. You're doing like pretty crazy. That's the startup. Like a startup goes from one to ten or one to five. A big company, normal company is like 20% growth a year or whatever. And

what I, we then both spent a good bit of time in prayer and what we realized was, and when we talked to it we have these great groups of spiritual advisors, bishop, priest, handful of folks, but in prayer the interesting thing we realized is like, hallow really isn't, people kind of get mad at me for saying this, but like hallow really isn't all that important. Like I use it every day three times a day. If it's not around tomorrow, I'm going to be like minorly inconvenienced. Like I'll be a little cranky, but I can still do my prayers. I can still do my rosary. I'll still do all the stuff that I need.

Whereas if like, if my doctor isn't around, or if like, whatever, Elon doesn't get to Mars or, you know, like there's things that, or like if my church isn't around tomorrow, or even if they just shut off the daily mass time that they have I'll be like really pissed like I'll be really upset or if somebody loses like an investor lose so it's like hallow actually isn't all that like mission critical for someone's spiritual life or for the church as a tool but what we do have as an app and as a startup is this unique opportunity to reach out to the folks who have most fallen away, like people who aren't going to church, who aren't

googling Catholic or Christian things, and people who aren't watching Catholic or Christian media. It's really hard to reach out to those people. And the only real way that you can do it is by doing crazy things that almost certainly are going to fail, like a Mark Wahlberg partnership, or like a Super Bowl commercial. And it's like, you know, the people watching the Super Bowl are not that, you know, we could run an ad on EWTN, which would be great. We'd be, you know, honored to get to partner with EWTN in any way. But we're not going to reach out to the folks who haven't been to church in 10, 20 years doing that. But we might through the

Super Bowl. And that's the only reason, the primary reason we partner with these folks who would, you know, people would call celebrities, is because they have this opportunity to reach out to people in a way that like really very few people can and get them to stop. The question of evangelization is such a funny one in today's world because where people mostly are if you're trying to reach them is scrolling. And so it's like, okay, what's the question of evangelization? The question is, how can I get you to stop scrolling for half a second? And it's like, I would love it if it was my face that did it. Like if I could say like, hey, it'd be a lot cheaper, it'd be a lot easier for me to build a hallow. But it doesn't. It doesn't get you to stop scrolling. And unfortunately,

your face is amazing, but it also doesn't usually get people to stop scrolling who don't know you. But people will stop scrolling for Mark or for Chris. And so that's like the, or Gwen Stefani or whoever it is. And so for us, it's about trying to partner with those folks to lead people into deeper prayer led by these spiritual guides who make up the vast majority of the app. And I can certainly see from people's perspective, like, well, Hallow feels all about celebrities. And it's like, yeah, I certainly get that, especially if all you see is social media. If you're in the app, we don't usually get that feedback because the fact, like 99% of

the content is not by Mark or not by Chris Pratt or not by whoever. The vast majority of the content is by these incredible spiritual and religious leaders. But if you're on social media, the ads that you'll see are mostly the people whose ads people resonate with. And so you're going to see Mark's face a lot more than you'll see Father Mike's because people like to have on Mark's face of the algorithm puts Mark's face up higher. And so I can certainly feel from outside the app that it's a lot about celebrities. But our goal is to try to partner with these folks, which again, it takes real courage to do this for these people, to reach out to their audience or to reach out to the folks who know them,

who are fans of them, to invite them primarily into a real relationship with the Lord. Now, they're great content creators too, like they're great voice actors, so Mark can do a great job of like pumping you up on Fridays, but just a little piece on Fridays throughout Lent. But like, you know, all that being said, that's like the context for why we do any of this. You know, there's like, we learn every day, we learn every week about how to do this in a way that is more fully in line with church teaching and more fully and authentically Catholic. And we make a ton of mistakes, both in how we present people, how we talk about people,

who we add to the app and all this stuff. And it's really important for us to make sure that we always stand with the church on every important issue, especially life, and we get better at that. We get better at that, hopefully, as we go. And people, so we really do appreciate, even though the feedback is usually negative, I do appreciate it, both because it's humbling and like that's good for my soul, hopefully, but also because it helps us to try to be better. So hopefully we hopefully we'd be better.

Yeah, that's really good. I mean, anyone who's putting anything out online knows what it's like to get criticism, knows what it's like to be attacked by, you know, a Twitter mob, quote unquote. And I know for me and others, what seems to be very important is to have trusted people in our orbit who can see things clearly. Because when everyone's coming after you and telling you how much you've failed in a particular area, it's like a smoke bomb goes off. And you can't, I mean, if you want to be humble, you want to be self-reflective, you want to

repent if you need to repent. But also you don't want to repent of things that you haven't actually done wrong. And so it's like, how do you navigate that? I know for me and others having a trusted group of people to be like, did I screw up here? And then, so what, who do you have or who do the people on Hallow have that you go to who have more of an objective stance as they? Yeah.

Yeah, for me, so Bishop Rhodes, Bishop Kevin Rhodes, who's of the diocese of Fort Wayne South Bend South Bend has been it's just a super solid bishop. Just a great guy and From like day one of Hallow has been through like all of our things and he's been awesome and he's honest Like he doesn't shy away when we mess up. He's like, here's how I think you messed up Yeah, and here's how I think you should be better which we you know has happened all the time And if he ever said to me like I think you need to take this offer, you need to change this, I would do it immediately, like I'm obedient to the church, obviously. I have a spiritual director who's phenomenal, Opus Dei guy is amazing. And then we have a group, like Father Mike and Sister Miriam are great on the app. Mother Olga is actually also really phenomenal. And then we have a group, like Father Mike and Sister Miriam are great on the app. Mother Olga is actually also really phenomenal.

And then there's a handful of people. I mean, you've been super helpful. There's a handful of people who, but really for us, it's primarily Bishop Rhodes. Oh, Father Frankie Cicero is amazing. But it's the people who we work with most to create content, who are also the people who are closest to our team, know our team, know what we're trying to do, know our mission, and have been with us through, you know, they get the context.

So it's like, okay, I understand. Like, maybe you make a mistake. Maybe I disagree with something you did, and I don't want to be whatever. That's totally fine. And then it's like, but hopefully we, you know, that group, it's probably like five, six, seven people. And there's a handful of others, too, that I would add in there.

But people probably wouldn't know. But that group of five, six, seven people has been there's a handful of others too that I would add in there, but people probably wouldn't know, but that group of five, six, seven people has been really pretty phenomenal for us. I heard a homily recently in Australia that really struck me. He was talking about the two ways that the devil can get us when it comes to evangelism and living our life to spread the gospel. Yeah, so like one is to make us non-reflective, not attentive, not repentant of the ways that we mess up. Yeah. So we can just think we're better than we are. We don't seem to care whether we're hurting or hindering people.

And you know, we talk about that a lot. He says the other way though is Satan will tell you how wretched and awful you are so that you're terrified. You're just curled up in a corner, not willing to go out and risk anything lest you be a stumbling block to anybody. And that's the other way. And so when you read people like Jose Maria Escrava, you see they're like, no, no, think way bigger than you're thinking, and let's go win the world for Christ. And are you going to mess up, make mistakes when you try to do that? Obviously, just like the apostles did. But so what?

Well, that's, yeah, people ask me, like, do you feel like you're attacked by, like, spiritual forces? And essentially, it's funny, I mean, there's a bunch of examples of that. Like, every time we go in to record something That is gonna be really powerful and that has in retrospect been really powerful and reached out to a bunch of people it always starts With and these are like the highest quality recording studios in the world We go to these places that record all these musicians and all this stuff like really top-notch Studios and every time Jonathan puts on his headphones And then he goes to record and there's a feedback that like is like a ear piercingly loud feedback in his ear and he like takes it off it like hurts his ears

Yes, you have to like, you know, it's like it really is painful physically and the sound engineer is like, ah, you know I've never had this happen. This is terrible. I can't believe what I like, you know, cuz it's this and So it's funny, but the biggest so certainly we have this kind of spiritual side of things But the biggest thing for me is I think what you said was really as a really good articulation of it it's like this combination of either vanity or pride which is the same thing but Like the the vanity is like oh, no people don't like me Which is it's it is funny actually because I I had you asked me five years ago like hey Alex 10,000 people are gonna hate you for some reason at some point in your life. Are you cool with that?

Are you gonna be okay with that? And I'd be like, yeah, fine, I don't care, whatever. But like, it does actually kind of mess with you. Like, it's like, it does actually, like, I like to think I'm some whatever, but like, it does make you sad. It's like, oh, that's sad that you want me dead. I don't, I don't, I don't, I hope, so it does physically. Yeah, most of us aren't Matt Walsh. Matt Walsh genuinely seems uninterested in you hating him.

Well, I'm sure after eventually. I'm sure, you know. Yeah, I'm sure it does in its own way. Eventually you have. Yeah. But, I don't know, for for me the funny thing about those times, and sometimes they're mistakes and sometimes they're, you know, failures, but the funny thing is that those are like clearly without a doubt the closest I've been to the Lord, like spiritually. It's like everything

I do, like every prayer, like a daily imitation of Christ the day whatever when there's the hours the readings mass Rosary like everything is like this deep spiritual consolation and that's probably because I need it and I'm like this I wish I was more advanced and I didn't need all this consolation from him and like he but he does and You know that happens with us externally like internet people hating you like we have a big team So this like a hundred people on our team and not everybody's gonna be a fan of me on Of a hundred people and that's fine. Like you don't have to be a fan of me to work it now, but the There's certainly and that like that hurts a lot more than yeah that emotionally hurts a lot more than some random thing

Yeah, yeah, something like a friend. Thank you like hey man. That's a stupid or like I hate what you're doing here But at the end, that is all, I don't know, we're just going through this, like, imitation of Christ again, but like, it is all just, for me, it is all vanity. And if I actually take myself out of it, and I'm like, wait, okay, like, do I think I'm doing right now in this moment what God wants me to do? And it's like, sometimes that's, you know, repent for a mistake or change something or learn from something or whatever, but like do I think... And it's like, okay, then why do you care what people...

Like it's all just self-image. It's the same thing for like public speaking. It's like, well, why do you... Or like, you know, why do you get nervous at a Tucker thing? Like why do you care? It's like if you look like an idiot on it, it'll probably, you know, be better for God, like, God will probably use that better, both for you and for whatever, but you just care about your own self-image, like, you just care about your vanity. Yeah, but that can cripple you, right? But it can also be like, okay, whatever,

yeah, I'll just do it. Well, it's like, I don't know, it's... As best as I can do it. It's like... And the Lord, as one priest said to me, his prayer is, Lord, use even my, and I'm changing the word here, use even my bull crap as manure for their growth. Right? Isn't that good? That's so good. He can use everything.

Yeah, but it's like Benedict when he was elected, he said, I trust that you're able to use humble instruments or blunt instruments. And then you think, golly, if he's a blunt instrument, I don't know what I am. And then, well, certainly. Yeah, and then you think golly if he's a blunt instrument. I know what I am. Yeah, and then that certainly The but then the other half so it's like pride or vanity Or it's vanity or pride and the pride is the stuff that really messes with you Yeah, where you feel like I want to do this because I want to do this and like what you said like no I'm a big deal. So like I'm right and I'm and it's like no you're not like you're just a piece of crap. Yeah

But I don't know. It's don't know, it's a good, it's like, I don't know, you feel like, it feels like God's bringing me closer to him so I appreciate him for that. You're the CEO, correct? Is that your title? There is a particular cross that CEOs are called to carry and no CEO is allowed to complain about it because no one cares what a CEO whines about.

But it doesn't mean that you're not called to carry it. It's a lonely place to be. I mean, I'll take you out of it because I'm not, when I speak for you, but you can imagine somebody they're doing their best to lead this company. You know, they've got mixed motivations, but hopefully they're doing it for the right reason most of the time. And then to have people under you criticize you, resent you, silently criticize you, slander you behind your back. You got to deal with that. And if you were like, it's so hard being the CEO, no one cares because you're the boss. And so you shouldn't have anything to complain about. So I think it's a particular cross that not a lot of people can resonate with. Imagine being a bishop. Oh, that would be awful.

Like who can resonate with the poor bishop? And so I think it's probably really important that bishops have other bishops to talk about, that you have other people. Saint Josemaria's Criva. This was a line that stuck out to me. We're doing it in the Lent Challenge, but when you meet with suffering, contempt, or the cross, this is from the way, when you meet with suffering contempt or the cross This is from the way when you meet with suffering contempt or the cross Your first thought should be what is this compared to what I deserve? Golly, I don't do that. I just think this sucks. God. Why have you abandoned it? Why did you give me I remember this? I was on a walk and

I was praying and outside my home and I was like, God, why do you give me such heavy crosses? And he was like, Alex, what cross am I giving you right now? And I was like, well, there's that there's those two tweets in that one email. He was like, two tweets and one email. That's the cross I'm giving you man. Come on, you can do the two tweets in one email, but I don't know it's I I actually feel the same You know, I have this enormous blessing to get to have this role and it's like I I love it It's awesome work. Like if I if I were to pick my job Like my dream job, it would be getting to build something

Getting to work with technology in some way dream job, it would be getting to build something, getting to work with technology in some way, getting to kind of be or learn from or spend a lot of time with monks and like really dive into the spiritual life and the contemplative life. And there's not really the intersection of those four in terms of like how you spend your day is, you know, there's not really anything for me other than this. So it's like this enormous blessing for me to get and And we have this great team of people who are phenomenal. You do. I got to meet them.

No, they're great. And I have two co-founders that are. I just had lunch with them the other day. And I was like, how sad it would be to just have to do this all alone, and instead to get to have three of you. It feels like there's three of you, because you've been through everything

And so it's just like everything is shared, but then we have this incredible team but I feel the same about I feel the same about fame and you get it you get a chunk of this certainly, but the Like fame for me is just such and it's so hard to complain about like for Mark or for Kevin James or for Jonathan Rumi or whatever it is. It's like it's this prison and it's it's so hard to complain about like for Mark or for Kevin James or for Jonathan Rumi or whatever it is it's like it's this prison and it's it's so right awful like it's no one's interested in here no one cares about the famous celebrity being like oh it's hard to have everybody love me and it's like I know honestly you can't eat dinner like you can't go you tell me who yeah I was at dinner with Kevin and Jonathan and it was just at a...

Kevin is... oh man, Kevin James is like one of the closest people to Christ I know in my life. Jonathan also is very, very holy. But Kevin just has this unique way of doing it. He's been doing it for a while. But he was sitting at dinner and he's probably approached over the course of two hours 200 300 like 200 times you are kidding me. No at what point did you go? We should have went somewhere else Well, yeah I didn't choose the place but I was like should we go to like a private and mark is it mark usually eats in a private thing or whatever but the

But it's just you know, like hey Paul Blart mall cop take a picture with me or like hey it's my birthday in three months wish me happy birthday and it's like beautiful because people are fans and they're trying to and he has this like incredible way of relating to people and Jonathan too like Jonathan has this unique one because you know we worship celebrities and he is a celebrity of the guy you actually worship. Oh, what a great way to put it. Yeah.

And so it's like, and so for a lot of people when they pray, and they do an imaginative prayer of Jesus or whatever it was, and Jim and Caviezel went through the same thing too, but like your face is now Jonathan's, you know, like that's who you see as you pray, which is great. Like it's beautiful to put that physically, but then you see him in person, and it's like you treat him, and it's like, you know, Kevin, like Paul Blart or Mark, like, you know, whatever cool movie Mark was in, but for Jonathan, it's like, oh, there's my Lord, like, I'm gonna go bow down before him. And so you have a bunch of people, like, come to him with crazy things that are, like, treating him

like Jesus, asking for healings or asking for blessings or whatever, and he's like, you know, I'll pray over you, I'll do whatever I can, but like I'm just a guy, I'm just an actor. And it's this enormous weight. The other thing I think we need to be... So tiring too, like it's like, if you're at a conference and you got like a line of 500 people that are waiting to talk to you, and it's important things, you know, for you, like they're coming and sharing like, hey, you changed my life, I was about to kill myself and I did it because of you. And you like, you wanna be infinitely present, but that's like the 201st person.

And again, all of this is everybody's gonna be like, oh, who gives a crap? Like you're famous and you're like, you know, get over it. But it's such a hard thing to complain about these guys, these celebrities. And it's like, so anyway, fame of the many allures of life like Fame I can see the vanity like a bunch of people telling you good things about yourself makes you feel good But fame is just such a terrible burden

Anyway, hey Jonathan roomie. I want to give him a shout out. He came on my side So good He came to my studio up in student bill and we had a lovely conversation people should go watch it if they haven't and he was so kind as he said, can we get together tonight? And yeah, sure. So we went to my cigar lounge, hung out, chatted, beautiful fella. And then my wife came by and then we dropped him off at his place. And you know, she's, my wife is dealing with a lot of health stuff and he's like, can I pray with you? So we're standing outside this car by his Airbnb and he's just placing a hand on her and just saying a very simple prayer.

And yeah, it's like having Jesus pray for you. It was pretty cool. But he was such a beautiful guy. But here's the other thing I think about celebrities that we really need to cut them some slack is who was it who said this? Did you ever listen to Smashing Pumpkins? Yeah, I loved Smashing Pumpkins. Who's the lead singer? No, no.

Baldhead guy. Three songs. Right. Love them. Three of the songs. Three of the songs. Freaking love all of us. I do love their songs though. Is everything okay? How are you? No, I was just checking the song I loved.

Oh, okay. You can go for it. Yeah. So anyway, he was on Joe Rogan show. And his point was people will say, yeah, fame has changed you. He's like, of course it has freaking changed me. You have any idea what it's like? There you go. That's it. You better stop that. Classic.

Oh, like don't play the song or else we're gonna get hit by YouTube. You have any idea what it's like to not be able to afford groceries and now you're like buying a Ferrari in cash. Yeah. You have, like, so what does that do to a person? You know, it does good things, does bad things. Like, they're carrying a cross that you're not going to carry. And the idea that if you had their fame, you'd be fine and totally down to earth and normal.

Especially as kids, like watching somebody like Justin Bieber or somebody go through their whole life. Yeah. Brittany, God bless beautiful Britney. But, I mean, money is the other, I mean, money... Money, I think, has a similar... It's hard for these folks because it's all the same thing. And each of them are like really tough. Like money can really destroy you. Yeah. And fame can really destroy you. And it just puffs you up. I mean, it just naturally puffs you up

if everybody comes to you and says you're the best. I think, cause actually, Aquinas goes over all of these different things, fame, power, money, physical pleasures, spiritual pleasures, et cetera, and how the good does not abide in any of these, even goods of the soul, because it's God alone. But I really think a lot of these things,

really we want them for power, eh? But I really think a lot of these things, really we want them for power. Yeah. Right. Because money is transactional. You want money in order to attain something else. And I think it's, you want fame. Why? Well, it's, it's kind of transactional as well. It's well, I want something else from this. We want, we want to, we want to be able to, I want to be able to control my life And I'm afraid that if I don't control it, I'm gonna be flooded and destroyed and everything will be ruined You know, I think that's what way why we want it Yeah, and you know whether you've got Jonathan roomie power or Alex Jones power my power or Alex Jones power The other Alex Jones power. Yeah, man, that's so funny

We should not put your face on this thumbnail and see if we can get this to like a million views There's so disappointed immediately but we all we all we all want the ability to control things because we're afraid of death and we're afraid of poverty and we're Afraid of evil and we think we just had enough money and power and influence, then we can keep that at bay, which is the complete opposite message of, unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's right, and I'm sure it's right on a deeper level than I can appreciate. For me, it's the...

I've been praying with this for the last couple of weeks, but it's just like vanity of vanities, all things are vanity. Yeah. And how little I thought about that. I don't think about that at all. And like, I don't really think I'm a vain guy. Like I don't really, again, like if you ask me relative to people, like, do I care what people think?

And I'm like, no, I don't like, I don't care if my hair looks good or like a shirt, wear whatever. But like, man, how much of actually all I care about is trying to make other people think I'm good or think I'm successful or like look at me in the right way. Like how much of my life is actually just vanity? That's like St. Teresa of Avila has this beautiful quote where she says, like, I tried for so long to reconcile these two things that were such at odds, which is like the things of

the world and advancement in the spiritual life. And what she would do, she says, is she would try to shut herself within herself. But she said, whenever I would try to shut myself within myself, I was shutting myself inside a thousand vanities. Which is just like, how true is that? If I'm going to say, hey, silence is where you can meet the Lord, you should sit in silence or you should sit in contemplative and meditative prayer. It's like, yeah, you should do that. But you're also probably going to be shutting yourself inside all of your worries and cares and vanities. Like it's just, you're just in there wrestling with like, what do people think of me? Am I going to, is this thing going to go well? Is this company thing

going to work? Is this whatever? And it's just all so ultimately vanity. Give me some practical ways to stop doing that then because I think what's so tough is the answer, I think we know what the answer is. It's like, trust what the, like be more interested in what the Lord says and what other people say. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. If I knew how to do that, so what do you do

or try to do to care less about the opinions of others and more about our Lord? I think like, well, there's a bunch of things there. I am very much at the beginning of whatever, but of figuring this out. So I certainly will look to you more so to tell me how to do it. But the, you know, St. Teresa of Avalon, St. John of the Cross are just like, you have to, you have to rip it all out, like pretty aggressively fasting. No one attached to the, I think St. Teresa of Avalos quote is no one attached to the, I think St. Teresa of Avila's quote is, no one attached to the visible things of the world can enjoy the invisible ones.

And St. John the Cross is obviously the dark night of the soul, the purgative way and all these things of like how you like aggressively rip these things out. And his prayer, I love his prayer. It's like, Lord, help me to seek in every moment, not what is easiest, but that which is most difficult, not that which is most delightful, but that which is harshest. And he speaks of it because he's saying, because what God offers you in this contemplative

and spiritual life, when you actually detach from these thousand vanities within your head, is like this incredible grandeur. Oh, souls created for such grandeur and called to them, what are you doing? How are you spending your time? So, I think it's, I mean, I don't know, obviously listen more to the Lord. I think it's prayer and fasting. Now, the question of fasting, I don't know how fasting, like I get fasting for like if your fear is money, like okay, give it away. Or if your fear is money, like, okay, give it away. Or if your attachment is money, give it away.

If your attachment is how you look, then, you know, fast from looking good. Or if your attachment is, you know, social media, fasting from social media. And so that you can detach from these things and attach to the visible things. But like intense fasting, I think it's like radical, crazy fasting. Some things can only be accomplished through prayer and fasting. But I don't know, the tough part about the vanity thing

of what other people think of you, honestly for me, the thing that's helped me most is it's like what you said, your experience where you said something that you had no idea what you're talking about and then you were infinitely humbled. Like the places where I felt most detached from my vanity or like where I felt like God was bringing me closest to him in terms of detaching from vanity was obviously through prayer and through silence and through contemplation but also just through embarrassment and humiliation

and ridicule and contempt. And I had this one interview on Fox Business, which I had just gone on Fox and Friends and Tucker. And so Fox Business, which is great, it was an honor to be on Fox Business, but Relative is a very small show. And so I wasn't nervous. I was like, Oh, whatever, like Fox Business, I can do Fox Business. And I get on and it was remote. And so like I set up a little camera and it's weird to look into a camera, you know, to talk. It's just like, I'd rather look at a person. And then when they do these remote things, sometimes there's a delay.

So it's like 20, 30 second delay. And TV and TV I hate TV because it's just like that you get two questions and 30 second answers And so then it's just like but you don't I don't feel like you know me. I don't know you I don't like I don't and So I'm terrible at so anyway we get on it's late. It's all Screwed up, and I like give the worst answer to some super easy a question that I've been asked a thousand times like Tell me about like you know how ha tell me about, like, you know, how Halo can work with technology to, you know, help somebody grow closer to God, doesn't that feel at all?

It's like a question I've answered so many times. And I just gave a terrible, like I started, like I had two points I wanted to make, you know, and I was like, well, there's two things. And then I just said the one, and then I forget the second as I'm talking. And so I just look like this idiot, like on this, you know, TV thing, and I just said the one. And then I forget the second as I'm talking. And so I just look like this idiot, like on this TV thing.

And I just go down and I was just like, ah! I was so mad. And it was so, and I was so mad at myself. And again, it was vanity. It was the same thing. 100%. I had my team, we had some all hands thing. A team got together and we did an anonymous questions for me.

Like ask me any anonymous questions and Like two of them were like it was like 30 questions all of them were very kind and you know real questions and again my team is phenomenal, but you know like two of them were harsh like mean and like character attacks to me and or like one or two and I And, or like one or two of them. And I was like, it just like hurt. Like it just like, ah, like somebody on our team, an anonymous thing, but like somebody who works here

feels that way, like how heartbreaking is that? But like after that, and it like, I mean, it was like brought to tears, but like after it, I just felt so much closer to the Lord. Like it just felt like He, I don't know, I think I was talking to somebody the other day and I was like, you know, it's kind of like when you're working out, like if I was trying

to help somebody work out, and I don't, I'm not a bodybuilder or anything, but I've been working out for a bit, and if, can you tell, I'm just kidding. I was like, fishing for a couple of, it's a bulky hoodie. It's a bulky hoodie, you've got the T-shirt on showing up. The, but I was like, you know, if I was trying like fishing for a couple of fish. It's a bulky hoodie. It's a bulky hoodie. You've got the t-shirt on showing up.

But I was like, you know, if I was trying to give someone advice on how to work out and they were like, how do I know that I'm getting stronger? The answer would be like, if they'd be like, I want to be able to lift heavy things. How do I know when I'm stronger? And I'd be like, well, it's when your muscle's really hurt and you can't lift anything.

And they're like, what are you even talking about? It's like, yeah, when your muscles are really sore, like when you really feel that you're fatiguing your muscles completely, like that is when they're growing the most. And they'll be like, that doesn't make any sense because I want to be able to lift things. I don't want them to get fatigued. I want the opposite. And like, I think it's the same thing for our pride and vanity. It's like when you feel like they're destroyed the most, which is one of, I think the blessing of, when we were talking about this before, how exhausting this thing can be, I'm sure for you,

but it's one of the blessings of it is you get scorned so often and so frequently, which you don't really get all that much in regular life, like just contempt from so many people, which is such a helpful thing for you spiritually. Yeah, I guess it can be, eh? Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell you an embarrassing story? I was giving a men's talk in San Francisco years ago. Wow, the heart of

Catholicism. It was a very friendly audience, but there was a talk I give to men, and at the end, I give five rules every man must break, which is super clever. Thank you. And so I'm giving this talk and I'm going through this list and I think it's going pretty well. And I come to number four and I realized that I don't know the fifth one. I've forgotten the fifth one. I don't have it written down in front of me.

I've given this a bunch of times. So this is to your point about, I've got two points and you give one. So anyway, so in my head, I'm like, all right, you've forgotten the've got two points and you give one. So anyway, so in my head, I'm like, all right, you've forgotten the fifth one, just give the fourth one. Don't even say number four, just give the final thing. And I give the last one. And then I'm like, all right, let's just wrap this up. All right. Thanks so much, guys. We're just gonna I don't know, I have an American accent. We're gonna close in a prayer in the

what's the fifth one? Someone from the audience. Sorry. We said there's five. What's the fifth one? Someone from the audience. Sorry? We said there was five, what's the fifth one? Dude, this is what I did. This is so bad. I don't know how I should have handled this. I should have went, I forgot it, so you get four today. And that would have been fine, probably. But here's what I did. I went, um, give me one sec.

I walked over to get my computer, brought it over, it wasn't on. I had to turn it on. Sorry, yeah. Boot it up. And then it turned out the fifth one really wasn't that interesting. And so it kind of wrapped up in 20 seconds. No, that's exactly, so I gave this thing

on to these Fox guys. It was the first time I'd ever been on this to met these people. And I was like, well, there's two things, the one thing is you know, you blah blah blah And then I literally just you know, they gave me one question and so then I'm literally just like And then the host jumps in and is like well, that's all we've got And I was thinking I was thinking of my wife after to your boy. I was like what would I In the normal conversation if I was doing that, what would I, in a normal conversation,

if I was doing that, what would I have done, had I not been so focused on myself? I would have just done what you said, I would have been like, you know, I forgot your question, honestly. What was the second half of your question? And that would have been like, fine, it's a little weird on TV, but whatever. It would have been like, yeah, okay, I totally understand that. But instead I just freeze on national TV. But anyways, it's like, I was talking to this priest

before Tucker, and I was like, what if I say something stupid? What if I say something that's wrong or whatever? What if I look like an idiot? And he was like, well, that'd be a lot better for you. He was like, it'd be a lot better for your soul. It's hard to discern, isn't it? Because people have often said to me,

like, would you go on Joe Rogan's show if he asked you? And I think I wouldn't. Really? Yeah, and I think I wouldn't because I'd be really afraid of just not doing a good job representing the Catholic faith. I think what I'd say to him or his people is, please get Jimmy Akin on. What do I have to do to get you to sit down with Jimmy Akin?

That's too bad because I was gonna say, if Joe wanted me on, I get Jimmy Akin on. What do I have to do to get you to sit down with Jimmy Akin? That's too bad because I was gonna say if Joe wanted me on, I was gonna have you on. Ha ha. Well, once it goes down the line, I'll point people to Jimmy. No, no, not him, not him, this guy. So you can see there being a legitimate reason and a prideful reason.

The legitimate reason is, I've seen what Joe does when things don't make sense to him, like he'll rip you apart. Oh yeah, he's good at it. Good for him, you know, like fair enough. He's just trying to understand things and he has a really good way of making you look like an idiot,

especially because he's got Jamie in the corner researching stuff. So I don't wanna look like an idiot. That's a prideful, vain reason. The other reason is I just don't wanna misrepresent. I really don't just. I know. And so it's hard to discern which one.

Well, but the issue is it's usually both. Like that's... I was... They're intertwined. I was praying about how the... like this was two or three years ago and I was really struggling with this. I was like... it was, you know, for daily Mass a couple days in a row or something, it had been something about ask, seek, knock, ask and it will be given to you again. And I was praying and I was like, okay, and I was really stressed and anxious about some Lent launch or something. This was like, I think it was, we did a Jonathan Rumi, Jim Caviezel first Lent Imitation of Christ, this was like two years ago. And I was really worried about it. And so I sat

and I prayed and I was like, okay, God, like if you want to know what I'm really worried about it. And so I sat and I prayed and I was like, OK, God, if you want to know what I'm actually worried about, or if I were to ask you specifically for what I want, I would like to 2.75x last Lent and hit 1 million people in the challenge or whatever the made up numbers that I had set as targets that I just, you know, whatever, just a matter of whatever, just numbers. And I was like, and I would like retention, like I'd like people. And then in prayer, I was like, God was like, Okay, so why do you want those things? And I was like, well, to be honest with you, there's two reasons. One is vanity.

Like I want people to look at me and be like, oh, you're some big successful thing and you started some successful thing and you're successful. And the other half is I honestly really love this mission of reaching out to the people who have most fallen away and helping them to pray every day. I think you are... I see what you're doing in people's lives. I see it changing people's lives radically. I see it like even people who take their faith seriously, whatever, but especially people

who have fallen away. I see what you're doing in it and I want to keep doing it. I want to help you keep doing that. I want to be a part of that. And I just really care about you having a relationship with these people. And he was like, okay, well that's easy, the first one is stupid, so like stop doing that. You know, like that's, cut that out, stop thinking about it every time you think about it, turn your mind to something else, like whatever, that's just vanity,

like that is just yourself thinking about yourself. And the second one is good, but don't you think I care a lot more about my children than you care about them? Like, I care a lot more about me reaching out to my kids than you do? And I was like, it's fair. And he's like, okay, so then don't stress about it. Like, I got it. Like, I am focused a lot more on it than you are.

So just like, I'll use you how I want to. And maybe that means how it goes up and maybe it means how it goes down. You will decrease, so I will decrease, so he will increase, whatever it is. But it's like, just let me have it. Which is like the story of surrender, which is our whole story of everything I have ever done in my own life. But it is like, you know, like if God wanted you on Joe, like he would, he'd have you on Joe and you'd do great.

Yeah. But if, you know, so there's a humility piece of it, which I think is beautiful and good, but I think for me, at least most of it, most of the fear is vanity, not... It's like couched in this, like, yeah, but what if I screw it up? And what if I misrepresent? And I think even that is like, well, but I would never say something that I am either like slightly unsure about the church teaching or confused about. Like I just would be like... And then you just be like, well, I don't know, like I'm not the best person to answer that question. I don't, I can't really explain that definitely.

And this gets back to what we said earlier. It's when you try to fluff it that you get into trouble. Oh wait, but I'm supposed to be the Catholic guy and I'm supposed to know all the things about prayer and whatever. And it's like, no, but sometimes you're just a dude. And you know what? Like, it even, it's not like you admit ignorance and look like an idiot. Actually, the opposite happens. If you admit ignorance gracefully and humbly, it actually, you get the praise as well. Do you know what I mean? Like I was talking to this Protestant minister in Ireland and we were going back and forth about the doctrine, one saved, always saved.

And I was giving him scripture verses that seemed to me to clearly refute that. And I was fully expecting him to come back at me and then I'd come back at him. And I shared it with him ready to go, right? I'd done my homework, I knew what we I shared it with him, ready to go, right? I'd done my homework, I knew what we were talking about today, I'm ready to go. And he said to me,

I've never really seen that scripture before, which I know is silly to say, because I've definitely read this. Would you mind if I spent some time in the Word and got back to you? And I'm like, yes, sure, yes, that would be fine. You know what I mean? And so what I realized is, oh my gosh, like I'm not just dealing with someone who wants to demolish me.

I'm dealing with someone who loves Jesus Christ and wants to follow. Now, we met later. He showed me why I was wrong, according to him. But it just showed me, like, no, you actually don't look like an idiot. You know, you actually, you look like an idiot. We look like it. I look like an idiot when I when I just Pretend to know what I don't know but when you're like, I don't know Come on like none of us are chat GPT or whatever. We're not supposed to know these things when I GPT doesn't almost things either but yeah But now I agree it's the it's the honesty that I mean for me is like you see that with everybody though It's like people I think are hungry for real authentic yeah like someone who's a

human yeah it's yeah you've got a book on the table and you haven't told me you wanted to talk about it but I assume you do otherwise you wouldn't have it there I have a book on the table what is the book I've heard about it it's not my book but I'm promoting it okay why are you promoting it it's and can I see it yeah you can it's beautiful I can give it to you if you want. Yes, I want that. Uh, there's a speech in there. You might, although if you're reading it, I will just buy it. I might. Um, it's on, no, I've read it. Um, that's the book that we're a piece. So the Lent challenge is on the way, um, which is St. Josemaria Escriva's book of spiritual wisdom. The tough

part about the way is it's just a series of like one-liner meditations, you know? And so it's tough to like make a challenge or like a journey that you go through. And so what we wanted to do is find somebody that at least folks in the West didn't really know and who could match kind of St. Josemaria Skriva's intensity. This guy does that? He does. Really? So everyone watching, it's called or listening, A Song for Nagasaki by Father Paul Glynn.

A story of Takashi Nagai, servant of God. But he's the story that we're going through this month. There's a speech in there that I was going to reference. But it's this crazy story, this guy. So anyway, we journey through this story in Lent. And it's like what he does in his life is bring to life or add color or give an example of what St. Josemaria Skriva is talking about. I am going to give this to you.

I've been giving all these away anyway. The, but gosh, it's such a good, so he's a Japanese man in the early 20th century, which is after like three centuries of religious persecution of Catholics in Japan. He converts to the faith through really prayer, which is like very similar to my own journey, and so it was meaningful to me. And had you ever heard of Takashi Nagai? No. Great. He's like decently famous in Japan, but

not really outside of Japan, and converts to the faith. He gets married, has two kids, and then becomes the dean of the hospital in Nagasaki, where he lives, and is studying radiology. And on August 9th, 1945, he's does a beautiful job of explaining what it is, but it's like, he somehow miraculously survives. He's like two blocks away from where the atomic bomb is detonated. And it's just like hell, like just hell on Earth. Like you walk outside and everything is rubble. And most people die on impact, but then there's a small chunk of people who survive. But then most of those people who survive have approximately like five, ten minutes of life where they're... this is very dark for anybody watching, but... is their skin melts from their body and they're just muscles.

And they're thirsty and so they ask for water and then they die. And so he somehow gets out of this hospital, the rubble that he's buried under. He's the most senior medical professional in the city. And the hospital's on fire. Everybody is running to the hospital. And so he's trying to heal people. He's trying to fix people up, doing what he can.

Some people do survive, but most people he just cares for as they die in their last two, five minutes. And there's like, oh, there's all these heartbreaking things Like there's a little you can hear this little There's a Catholic school Nagasaki is seen as the Catholic Center of Japan, and there's this Catholic school run by nuns of just a bunch of Catholic school girls next to the hospital or near the hospital and They just hear During the air raids they would sing the Ave Maria, they

would chant the Ave Maria, little girls, and so they started chanting it during the air raid and so as he's like escaping from the rubble all the medical staff just hear these girls singing this as they die for like the last five, ten minutes. Anyway he like has this miraculous story of healing a bunch of people, losing like, losing a lot of his life, losing his loved ones, losing a lot, like a modern-day job. But then, like through it, and there's so much more I can say, but through it, like surrendering completely to the Lord. And there's this speech that he gives at the end of the book that he's kind of one of the more senior leaders of. It was exploded in

his suburb of Nagasaki. And the speech, he's asked to give a talk at the memorial, which is an open air, the church is completely demolished, but they go to the church and they have this open air ceremony for the people who have died. And so it's right after. And he gives this speech and he's been praying over and he's, you know, by this point, very deep into his conversion, very Catholic, takes his faith very seriously. And he's lost, you know, his loved ones, he's lost what's most precious to him. And he gives this speech that's just like, I have heard that the American bombers were meant for a different city, which is true, and that city was covered in cloud, too heavy a cloud cover, and so they went to Nagasaki,

but then because of mechanical failure, the bomb was dropped not over the middle of the city but over our suburb. I'm convinced that it was not the American bombers that decided to drop the bomb over us but the providence of God. And he goes on to say this, like he's citing Revelation and all these different things, but he was like, of the war, we had the privilege of being the unblemished lamb that was offered for the burnt sacrifice, for the end of the war, to save the lives of millions, and for religious freedom in Japan. Blessed be the Lord, he is given.

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh Japan. Blessed be the Lord, he is given. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Lord, thank the Lord for allowing us to be the sacrifice. And it's just like the craziest, you know, you just lost your family. Like you just, everything was just destroyed. And he just like offers it up as this surrender to the Lord. Like, hey Lord, you allowed us to be the sacrifice.

This Catholic city that has endured, like, you know, just before in their recent history from Japan, was like the 26 martyrs, the 26 Catholic martyrs of Japan that were crucified on the hill of Nagasaki. So like Nagasaki is this Catholic hub of Japan, and this suburb is, like, you've got these Catholic schools, you've got this beautiful cathedral, you've got this, all this is just destroyed. And so he's like, we, at the honor of being the sacrificial lamb. Like, you've got these Catholic schools, you've got this beautiful cathedral, you've got this, all this is just destroyed. And so he's like, we, at the honor of being the sacrificial lamb.

And then he goes on to like, rebuild essentially the city. And they say, like, they describe Hiroshima as, they have a symbol for the two cities, and Hiroshima is like fighting fists. Which is like, you bombed us, and and we hate you and Nagasaki was hands in prayer And they say it's because of Takashi Nagai and they like you went on to write all these books live this Like abject poverty life like a life of a monk and heal all these people and lead all these people and like deep spiritual Guide and all this stuff, but it's just so anyway. It's a crazy story, but it's just about Like how we're all called even in our own daily lives, to this radical crazy surrender, even in the worst possible things, and this radical crazy faith.

And St. Josemaria Escriva, this is my point, he's a very intense guy. You read his stuff and you need somebody who's really pretty intense to live that up or to bring that to life. And Takashi Nogai does. So anyway, that's the story of Takashi Nogai, which is the story we're journeying through for Len. That's amazing. How does Father Paul factor into this? Father Paul wrote... Father Glenn... This is... So Takashi Nogai wrote a bunch of books. He's actually also a poet, so he writes a bunch of poetry too. But Paul Glenn gives the biograph...

Father Glenn gives the biography of his life. So it's a biography. How did he, do you know how he came into contact? I don't know. I don't think it was a direct, I think it was after he passed. But it's, I don't know the details of Father Glenn and how he wrote it, but he does a beautiful job of bringing to life because he has this really cool conversion story. So it's this whole story before the bomb. Obviously the bomb in Japan is when he becomes famous and like they make movies of him and all this stuff, but

it's this whole spiritual journey leading, like any like great surrender, this whole spiritual journey leading up to this and then afterwards is this beautiful and his relationship with his wife and his kids and all this stuff is, you know, Father Glenn does a great job bringing to life and Takashi doesn't usually write about, it's not, he doesn't have a biography like Saint. Teresa of Avila does or anything. So it takes a, it takes a father. I've been hearing about it more and more lately. Yeah. Takashi?

That book in particular. Really? Yeah. There we go. I like it. Could you, different topic. Can you tell me about Gwen Stefani? Is that her name?

Yeah. She used to be the lead singer of No Doubt. Yeah. What's the list? She is. She was big back in the 90s maybe in the 90s people still over either we tried to get an ad saying ain't no hollowback girl I'm a hollowback girl okay and there's some copyright again I my so just like position when I didn't know Chris Pratt's name was, obviously these are very famous people. It's my fault that I don't know who she is. I remember some of her music, but what's,

I mean, if you're able to tell me what's her spiritual journey been? Is she a practicing Catholic or? Yes. It's, well, it's in the Lent challenge. she shares her spiritual journey, so folks should check it out. But it's beautiful. She went through a tough time, like five-ish years, a few years ago. And I can't say like a ton about it, but you can hear the stuff from the story that she shares. But she then came to her faith in this like really radical way. Started praying the rosary every day. Started using the app every day. And that was one where she reached out to us, I think.

And was like, hey, I just love this app. Like, is there anything? And we were like, yeah, like it's like... And she came out with this song that was really beautiful. That was this like prayer. That was, it was like a Christmas time song, but it was... She said she was just on a run. It was after her like kind of reversion, I guess. I don't know if she would call it that, but she was raised Catholic, kind of fell away during her music

career times, and then came back to it recently, and has been praying the rosary. This is a beautiful conversation about like how to pray the rosary and how to give the rosary. This is a beautiful conversation about like, you know, how to pray the rosary and how to give ourselves to Mary. And that's incredible, dude. But it's really cool. And it's again, it's like, you know, for somebody who's a Gwen fan,

like to get to be like, oh, the rosary, you know, changed her life is, anyway, it's a cool story. And then we, I think someone praised the rosary, but it's a, yeah, it's a beautiful little session. So folks should check it out. But she's got a cool, she's got a cool story and then we I think someone praised the rosary, but it's it's a yeah It's a beautiful little session so folks should check it out, but she's got a cool. She's got a cool story Hello calm slash Matt Fred. Is that it? I think it is Try that out. That doesn't work. Just go to hello calm on your computer the promo codes Matt Fred pretty sure I why am I asking you that you a million? I I really should know this I'd like to apologize to everybody. We'll put it in the description below

But you get three months free So you don't get charged a dime until the third month, right? So try it if you don't like it cancel it And if you've tried it before and have canceled it, maybe give it another shot. It's better now is it? Oh, yeah It's way better. It used to be terrible. Okay. It was like when you started promoting, it was just like purple squares. Oh sure, back then. And sessions on it.

I love that sales pitch. Try it, it used to be terrible. Try it, it used to be terrible. It's way better. It's not as bad now. All right, so here's my final question for you. What is one prayer or session of prayers or readings on the Hallow app that doesn't get nearly the kind of attention you wish it would because it's objectively

awesome and you wish more people would Listen to it or is that not a thing? No, there's there's a lot. I mean I go through kind of like seasons I just kind of the cool part of the app and how we tried to structure it is Like people can resonate with different things at different times in their life, and for me there's like a different, yeah, there's a different thing. So I do think the Marian consecration is phenomenal. So like there's the St. Joseph one that Sister Miriam does.

They're both amazing. Honestly, the daily imitation of Christ is, Jim Caviezel does it, and it's phenomenal. He's like super intense, but it's beautiful. For me, the Litany of Humility and the Surrender Novena are the big ones, but it's people, those are decently popular, so that one's, I really like the chant on the app though. My personal favorite is your lo-fi.

Yeah, your lo-fi. Yeah, your lo-fi. Or there's this Bible story song, it's this beautiful reading of song of songs. Yeah, gosh, it's gorgeous. Yeah, it'll make your knees buckle. Or at least that's what my wife says. I don't think that's true. It's romantic.

It's romantic. Yeah, but I always go back to Scott. Man, he's got such a good voice for that kind of... Are you still doing Bible stories? Because I feel like... We haven't done as many of them. We have a lot of them. All right.

Can I admit something that's embarrassing and probably says something terrible about me? I don't think it really does. I like some ASMR. Yeah. And I know that ASMR gets weird. I get it. But having someone just read quietly the gospel of Luke or anything...

No, it's really good. ...that doesn't get weird I love it where no one's making weird mouth noises in my ears. I would love that. Yeah, that's more Serato do some ASMR Tough with the accent, maybe see if you can find a Cardinal Sarah she might be able to do it Not Cardinals or a slurred embers Thank you so much for coming on the show and thanks for the good work you're doing and continue to do okay last question I know I said I had a last question his last question

Do you ever consider like what's the off-ramp like? How are you gonna wrap this up and not go down in flames? Like are you tired of doing this? Are you looking to exit? Hello personally at some point? Is that too personal thing to ask on air? No, I would do this for the rest of my life if God lets me. Cause you know, they always say that, I'm not saying this is true of you, but the company sometimes outgrows the CEO.

And it's brutal to try to get the CEO to recognize that. I can think of at least two companies. How it's possible. I mean, it's true of me too, right? Like maybe somebody else should do this and I'm not seeing it. But I know of two companies. So I've actually, well, I won't say any more than that. Two companies where the CEO had essentially be overthrown

because the vision of what this thing could be outgrew the vision of the found. That's not always the case, obviously. Yeah, I mean, there's an important piece in there about like governance. So like, I don't want Hallow to ever be like something that's just trying to maximize shareholder value. So like, you know, the vision of it is important to have and somebody who is doing this for the faith

and not for some, you know, profit thing or something. I mean, I would, it is, like we were talking about this, it's a tiring thing to do. Like it it's a lot especially during like the crazy times It's nice because there's like, you know, the summers a little bit slower or whatever, but you get a little bit of a break But it can be a lot. It can be pretty tiring and it can be exhausting but I don't know I just keep coming back to like But I don't know, I just keep coming back to like, you know, there was this couple that wrote us this note and it was just a couple days ago that I read it. And he was like, hey, we had never taken our faith seriously.

We had just gotten married and we had just gotten pregnant with our first kid and we lost him, miscarried our first kid and we were destroyed. Like it just totally wrecked us. And we found Hallow and started praying with it. And like gradually started learning what like surrender to the Lord meant, and gradually started learning what like faith and contemplative or meditative or spiritual, like what we were called to, a relationship with Jesus, like what a relationship with Jesus was. And then we got pregnant again, and we were so filled with anxiety and stress and dread. And like, it just wrapped us up. And we miscarried,

we lost him again at five months. And we were sitting there in the hospital, holding our baby in our hands, and just like broken and destroyed. And we prayed this prayer of surrender and had it not been for being able to trust, being able to cast some of that on the Lord, like we didn't do it perfectly, but like had it not been for us beginning that journey a little bit, I'm confident it would have ended us. Like it would have been the end of our relationship.

It was just such a heavy pain. And we prayed over Him, we found some sense of healing. And then we're able to try to grow a little bit in our surrender of the Lord in our faith, thanks to the grace that God gave us through Hallow. And then God gave us a kid, our first born son, who was born, whatever, a couple months ago. And I just wanted to thank you guys, we prayed a prayer from Hallow over him once he was born whatever a couple months ago and I just wanted to thank you guys we prayed a prayer from hell over him once he was born and it's just like like I would do that it's it's funny because you probably experienced this too like if you don't stop and like really think about those individual

stories like you can just glance over them like somebody changed your life now you just know you brought me to Jesus how you probably but it's like if you really stop and you're like wait for like 10 minutes I'm just gonna sit with what happened in this person's life and like oh, I would do that forever If God let me and yeah, I'm sure how my it will either outgrow me or crash and burn terribly and Everyone will hate me and whatever. That's totally fine. Most people already know it's it's good cuz the name the name is gives me some Anonymity, it's nice. It's like if you Google Alex Jones I'm probably never gonna come up. Never. No matter what I do. Exactly. There's always gonna be an Alex Jones more popular than you. Unless I'm fined a billion dollars.

Yeah. I don't know. So it's tiring, it's hard, but I don't know. It's the race. It's the race God has me in for now and he'll do whatever he wants with it. Alright. Thanks for being on the show. You rock man. Have a good one.