C.S. Lewis Summer PRAYER Challenge
A NOTE FROM FR. MARK ABOUT HALLOW AND OUR C.S. LEWIS SUMMER PRAYER CHALLENGE
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
June 1 was our first-year anniversary as Parish partners with Hallow! If you are unfamiliar with Hallow, Hallow is the number one Catholic Prayer app in the world. Over the course of the last year, we have partnered with Hallow, giving our parishioners access to much of the material behind their pay wall for free. As we conclude our first year with Hallow, we have 935 members on our parish page, over 1.7 million minutes of prayer completed and 543 individual prayer intentions have been held before God. As our representative at Hallow has said, this is “extraordinary”. Over the course of the year many of you have shared with me how Hallow has enriched your prayer life, enhanced your understanding and appreciation for the faith, and deepened your relationship with God. Hallow is an easy way to get your #10INTODAY in every day.
As we move into our second year of partnering with Hallow, I am excited to let you know we have set-up our C.S. Lewis Summer Prayer Challenge! Beginning on July 1, a 14-day series on the book “Mere Christianity” will be available to you. It was this series that first led me to believe it was worth subscribing to Hallow. Then, starting on July 15, a second 14-day series will be available on the “The Screwtape Letters”. In this imaginative book, a senior devil named Screwtape writes letters to his nephew, Wormwood, explaining how to tempt a human away from God. I am sure you will find both “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters” to be enjoyable, informative, and maybe even transformative.
If you have not yet joined us on Hallow, please do! It is easy and free. Simply download the Hallow App, create your account then, using the “Church” icon on the bottom right-hand side of the screen, search for “The Catholic Community of Pleasanton.” As we move into our second year of partnering with Hallow, we look forward to additional prayer challenges, including Advent, Lent and a special Parish Partner Challenge, among others.
Whether you are spending the summer travelling or relaxing at home, let us keep each other in prayer that God will continue to greatly bless our community here at CCOP.
Peacefully,
Fr. Mark
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
June 1 was our first-year anniversary as Parish partners with Hallow! If you are unfamiliar with Hallow, Hallow is the number one Catholic Prayer app in the world. Over the course of the last year, we have partnered with Hallow, giving our parishioners access to much of the material behind their pay wall for free. As we conclude our first year with Hallow, we have 935 members on our parish page, over 1.7 million minutes of prayer completed and 543 individual prayer intentions have been held before God. As our representative at Hallow has said, this is “extraordinary”. Over the course of the year many of you have shared with me how Hallow has enriched your prayer life, enhanced your understanding and appreciation for the faith, and deepened your relationship with God. Hallow is an easy way to get your #10INTODAY in every day.
As we move into our second year of partnering with Hallow, I am excited to let you know we have set-up our C.S. Lewis Summer Prayer Challenge! Beginning on July 1, a 14-day series on the book “Mere Christianity” will be available to you. It was this series that first led me to believe it was worth subscribing to Hallow. Then, starting on July 15, a second 14-day series will be available on the “The Screwtape Letters”. In this imaginative book, a senior devil named Screwtape writes letters to his nephew, Wormwood, explaining how to tempt a human away from God. I am sure you will find both “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters” to be enjoyable, informative, and maybe even transformative.
If you have not yet joined us on Hallow, please do! It is easy and free. Simply download the Hallow App, create your account then, using the “Church” icon on the bottom right-hand side of the screen, search for “The Catholic Community of Pleasanton.” As we move into our second year of partnering with Hallow, we look forward to additional prayer challenges, including Advent, Lent and a special Parish Partner Challenge, among others.
Whether you are spending the summer travelling or relaxing at home, let us keep each other in prayer that God will continue to greatly bless our community here at CCOP.
Peacefully,
Fr. Mark
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MERE CHRISTIANITY
Journey through the incredible work of C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity with Bear Grylls, Fr. Gregory Pine, and Matt Fradd. Considered one of the most powerful defenses of Christianity, Mere Christianity is an incredible book for anyone curious or skeptical about God and the Christian life. Hear the truths of the faith broken down in a super clear and easy way as Fr. Gregory Pine reflects on significant excerpts of the book voiced by Bear Grylls. |
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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS
Is Spiritual Warfare Real? Join Jim Caviezel, Fr. John Riccardo, and Msgr. Stephen Rossetti as they guide you through The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. As we listen in to a fictional conversation between a senior demon, Screwtape, Lewis takes us on a journey through deep spiritual truths from a unique perspective – through the eyes of the enemy. In doing so, we’ll understand more about both eternity and our everyday lives. Join us! |
WHAT IS HALLOW?
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What Happens When We Pray?
A Vision of Prayer For Our Community
Introducing Hallow! Hallow is the world’s #1 Prayer and Meditation App. Thousands and thousands of prayers available and something for everyone. Hundreds of Millions of prayers already prayed on the app. A great tool for growing in relationship with God and in your Catholic faith. A Special Partnership With Hallow Our Parish is working closely with Hallow to grow our culture of prayer with this vision:
How Do We Do It?
How Does It Work?
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If you are already on Hallow and are a subscriber…
1. Open the Hallow app 2. Navigate to the Community tab (bottom of screen) 3. Search for our parish by zip code or name and select Join 4. Start praying! If you want to join Hallow for free… 1. Download the Hallow app and create an account 2. Navigate to the Community tab (bottom of screen) 3. Search for our parish by zip code or name and select Join 4. Start praying! If you want to access all premium content with your parish discount… 1. Navigate to Hallow.com/Parish on your web browsers (NOT IN APP!) and follow the prompts 2. Purchase a Hallow premium account with your parish discount. 3. Download or open the Hallow app 2. Navigate to the Community tab (bottom of screen) 3. Search for our parish by zip code or name and select Join 4. Start praying! 
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To get more details on how to signup for Hallow, please watch the video below.
About Our Relationship With Hallow
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I pray you are having a powerful and life-changing Lent this year. I am grateful to all of you who have shared with me how God is working in your life during this holy season.
As you are aware, one of the ways many of us are practicing the spiritual discipline of prayer this Lenten season is with the use of the Hallow app. It has been exciting to hear how our parish partnership with Hallow has deepened the relationship with God for so many of you.
At our last Pastoral Council meeting, several questions regarding our parish’s relationship with Hallow were raised. So, I thought I would clarify the details of our parish relationship with Hallow.
The Catholic Community of Pleasanton and none of its priests, deacons, staff members or parish members receive compensation from Hallow. Should a member of the parish choose to pay for a Hallow subscription, 100% of what is paid goes to Hallow.
We pay Hallow a fee of $8000 a year (for each year of a two-year contract) to offer our parishioners free access to our parish page on the app so you can enjoy the free content as well as some premium content. We are able to share premium content eight times a year, including the Advent and Lent challenges. In addition to the free access given to anyone who wants it, we are able to provide no cost premium subscriptions to all our youth, a limited number of no cost premium subscriptions to parish members, the opportunity for me as pastor to place recordings on our parish page of the Hallow app twice a year (I do not receive compensation for creating content), the ability to occasionally direct message the users of the Hallow app within our parish boundaries, and as they will do next week, Hallow provides our annual parish mission.
We do not track each person’s individual usage of Hallow. We do not see or know specific parishioner usage of the app. Rather, we are able to see aggregate numbers of prayers prayed and numbers of minutes all our users on Hallow have prayed. This is important information as it helps me to evaluate if Hallow is being used and worth the money we pay for it.
When I asked Hallow about their use of your private data, our Hallow representative sent this:
“Hallow has one of the strictest privacy policies in place. We do not track or share specific individual parishioner activity with parishes, and we do not sell any subscriber data to anyone — ever. The only time prayer activity can be visible to a parish community is if an individual user chooses to share it. There is an optional in-app feature that allows someone to share their prayer activity with their parish community, but this is completely voluntary and can be easily toggled off at any time in the app under the “Me” tab in the general settings. Protecting our users’ privacy and trust is extremely important to us.”
Peacefully in Christ,
Fr. Mark
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I pray you are having a powerful and life-changing Lent this year. I am grateful to all of you who have shared with me how God is working in your life during this holy season.
As you are aware, one of the ways many of us are practicing the spiritual discipline of prayer this Lenten season is with the use of the Hallow app. It has been exciting to hear how our parish partnership with Hallow has deepened the relationship with God for so many of you.
At our last Pastoral Council meeting, several questions regarding our parish’s relationship with Hallow were raised. So, I thought I would clarify the details of our parish relationship with Hallow.
The Catholic Community of Pleasanton and none of its priests, deacons, staff members or parish members receive compensation from Hallow. Should a member of the parish choose to pay for a Hallow subscription, 100% of what is paid goes to Hallow.
We pay Hallow a fee of $8000 a year (for each year of a two-year contract) to offer our parishioners free access to our parish page on the app so you can enjoy the free content as well as some premium content. We are able to share premium content eight times a year, including the Advent and Lent challenges. In addition to the free access given to anyone who wants it, we are able to provide no cost premium subscriptions to all our youth, a limited number of no cost premium subscriptions to parish members, the opportunity for me as pastor to place recordings on our parish page of the Hallow app twice a year (I do not receive compensation for creating content), the ability to occasionally direct message the users of the Hallow app within our parish boundaries, and as they will do next week, Hallow provides our annual parish mission.
We do not track each person’s individual usage of Hallow. We do not see or know specific parishioner usage of the app. Rather, we are able to see aggregate numbers of prayers prayed and numbers of minutes all our users on Hallow have prayed. This is important information as it helps me to evaluate if Hallow is being used and worth the money we pay for it.
When I asked Hallow about their use of your private data, our Hallow representative sent this:
“Hallow has one of the strictest privacy policies in place. We do not track or share specific individual parishioner activity with parishes, and we do not sell any subscriber data to anyone — ever. The only time prayer activity can be visible to a parish community is if an individual user chooses to share it. There is an optional in-app feature that allows someone to share their prayer activity with their parish community, but this is completely voluntary and can be easily toggled off at any time in the app under the “Me” tab in the general settings. Protecting our users’ privacy and trust is extremely important to us.”
Peacefully in Christ,
Fr. Mark