A still from Hallow's Super Bowl commercial airing Feb. 11, 2024. / Credit: HallowCNA Staff, Feb 9, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).The Catholic prayer app Hallow announced that its first-ever Super Bowl commercial will air during the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Feb. 11. "Our goal at Hallow is to try to help as many people as possible, especially those who have most fallen away, to pray and build a real relationship with God," Alex Jones, co-founder and CEO of Hallow, told CNA in an interview.He shared that the 30-second commercial is "just a simple invitation to pray together." "Let's all just take 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, during the Lord's day, to give thanks to God together. That's really all Hallow is about, just spending time with God, just letting Christ into our hearts. It's an honor to be able to use the Super Bowl, for the first time ever, as an opportunity for us all to pray."The ad will feature Catholic actors M...
A still from Hallow's Super Bowl commercial airing Feb. 11, 2024. / Credit: Hallow
CNA Staff, Feb 9, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The Catholic prayer app Hallow announced that its first-ever Super Bowl commercial will air during the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Feb. 11.
"Our goal at Hallow is to try to help as many people as possible, especially those who have most fallen away, to pray and build a real relationship with God," Alex Jones, co-founder and CEO of Hallow, told CNA in an interview.
He shared that the 30-second commercial is "just a simple invitation to pray together."
"Let's all just take 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, during the Lord's day, to give thanks to God together. That's really all Hallow is about, just spending time with God, just letting Christ into our hearts. It's an honor to be able to use the Super Bowl, for the first time ever, as an opportunity for us all to pray."
The ad will feature Catholic actors Mark Wahlberg, who recently starred in "Father Stu," and Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as Jesus in "The Chosen." The teaser of the commercial shows both in a church — one blessing himself with holy water, the other receiving ashes on his forehead.
"Jonathan and Mark are two of our closest and longest-term partners. Both have done an incredible job reaching out to people and inviting them into prayer over the past couple years," Jones said. "We've seen their work change thousands of people's lives — people who have fallen away for years but see an invitation from Mark or Jonathan and are brought back into their faith for the first time."
This year, the Super Bowl takes place three days before the beginning of Lent. Jones explained that when he and his team realized this, they were "thrilled."
"When we found out the Super Bowl was going to fall on the Sunday immediately before Ash Wednesday, which only happens once every 10 years or so, we were thrilled at the idea of using it as an opportunity to invite people into prayer, especially those who are the hardest to reach, folks who might never otherwise have encountered prayer," he said.
The commercial is set to air shortly before halftime and will air in 15 markets, FoxNews reported.
Jones hopes that the ad "reaches out to someone who maybe hasn't prayed in a long time. That it might just allow someone somewhere an opportunity to let God into their hearts for the first time."
He added: "If we can reach out to just one person like that — someone in a tough place, someone lost — and help them to begin a journey back to God, then yes, it will have been worth it."
Pope Francis waves while traveling by boat in Venice, Italy, for a meeting with young people at the Basilica della Madonna della Salute on April 28, 2024. Earlier in the day he met with inmates at a women's prison. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Pope Francis opened his one-day visit to Venice on Sunday morning with a meeting with female inmates where he reaffirmed the importance of fraternity and human dignity, noting that prison can be a place of new beginnings. "A stay in prison can mark the beginning of something new, through the rediscovery of the unsuspected beauty in us and in others, as symbolized by the artistic event you are hosting and the project to which you actively contribute," the pope said to the female inmates gathered in the intimate courtyard of the Women's Prison on the Island of Giudecca. Pope Francis left the Vatican by helicopter at approximately 6:30 in the mo...
Pope Francis prays in front of the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist inside St. Mark's Basilica in Venice on April 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 09:35 am (CNA).Pope Francis had a full slate of events Sunday during his day trip to Venice, a trip that tied together a message of unity and fraternity with the artistic patrimony of a city that has been a privileged place of encounter across the centuries. "Faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God's love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner, and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid," the pope said to over 10,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Mark's Square. Framing his homily during the Mass on the theme of unity, one of the central points articulated throughout several audiences spread across the morning, Pope Francis reminded Christians: "Remaining ...
Prayer house at San Simeone, Italy, September 2012. / Credit: Courtesy of Ricostruttori nella preghieraRome, Italy, Apr 28, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across Italy there are houses of prayer run by the Ricostruttori (Reconstructors) community, a Catholic movement dedicated to people who are far from the Church but attracted to spirituality, particularly Eastern meditation and Buddhist practices. The Reconstructors was founded in 1978 by Jesuit Father Gian Vittorio Cappelletto. "During the postconciliar period, the Church was faced with the need for new forms of evangelization and apostolate, to reach out to people who were drifting away," Don Roberto Rondanina, priest and superior of the Ricostruttori, explained to CNA. "It was a time when Eastern meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age ... were beginning to spread in Europe." "Father Cappelletto, who lived in Turin, sought to understand the meaning of this 'flight to the East' and felt the need to find new forms of sp...