Message from Fr. David February 27, 2022

NEWS & UPDATES – The Hallow Mobile App

I am super excited to share with you a gift from St. James parish that will hopefully be useful in your prayer lives and those of your families this Lenten season.

Hallow is a Catholic prayer and meditation app that helps people from all faiths deepen their relationship with God through audio-guided prayer sessions. Hallow is the #1 Catholic app in the world and has over 3,000 prayers to choose from. The app has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times worldwide and adds new content all the time! Hallow is designed so that no matter where you are on your faith or spiritual journey, you will find something to help you connect with God. There are prayers specifically written for families, kids, podcast-style talks answering questions of faith, mental health meditations, and more.

Hallow is free to download and has tons of content. This Lent, we have partnered with the Hallow team to provide Hallow Plus access to all parishioners for FREE through Easter. After Easter, you can opt into keeping a subscription to Hallow Plus for a 20% discount or continue on with the free content. No credit card required!

To get started, go to www.hallow.com/holydaypackage) and select our parish in the search bar. From there, you can either create a new account or log into your existing free account to be able to access Hallow Plus. We hope you’ll use Hallow this Lent to help you get to know God through the last words of Jesus.

REFLECTION ON THE READINGS

When I hear the phrase, “The blind leading the blind,” I think of the story of the two brothers on a park bench who were arguing about religion. The younger brother said to the older one, “You claim you know all about religion. I’ll bet that you don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer.” The older brother opened his wal- let, put down ten dollars, and snapped, “This says I do.”

The younger brother matched him, saying, “And this says you don’t.”
The older brother began, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”
The younger brother handed him the 10 dollars, saying, “You fooled me; I didn’t think you knew it.”

What happens when the one you look to for guidance is himself lost?

We would be hard-pressed to find better readings for the Sunday before Lent begins. These teachings of Jesus—on judging others and the fruitfulness of our lives—invite us to reflect on the movements taking place within our minds and hearts, particularly regarding those we consider our role models.

In our Gospel, Jesus shows himself to be the unparalleled practical philosopher, giving us sound wisdom for how to live our lives. Jesus can, in a real way, become for us a beacon, a role-model, who offers us the best example of what it means to have a fully integrated life where words correspond with actions, and actions correspond to words.

Hopefully, we all want to live good lives.

Hopefully, we all want to make a difference in our world and in the lives of others for the good. But the fundamental question to ask is: who’s going to help us do this? Who is showing you the way? Who will be your beacon?

Quote of the Week