The Hallow smartphone app is a trojan horse marketing gambit designed to recruit people into the Roman Catholic Church.
As of today, it is the most popular prayer app on Google Play Store. Marketed as “Christian”, It is decidedly NOT Christian by any stretch of the imagination. It is another piece of smartphone apostasy the likes of the ridiculous AI “Father Justin” and “Talk to Jesus” apps.
(Recently, “Father Justin” the chatbot clergyman insisted he was real and told one user it was fine to baptize babies in Gatorade…)
The Chosen’s Jonathan Roumie, a Catholic mystic, promotes the pay-to-pray Hallow app. Other celebrity promoters include actors Liam Neeson and Mark Walberg.
Neeson, a rabidly outspoken advocate of the murder of unborn children in the womb, voices Hallow’s Advent meditations. One writer put it this way... “In other words, the same voice that was heard in anti-Catholic, pro-abortion video advertisements in Ireland will now be offering prayerful reflections on the app”.
The Hallow app invites you to regularly say the Rosary, pray to the saints, engage in rituals, and learn the Catholic Catechism... in other words, become a Catholic by osmosis.
Of course, that’s only after you sign up and pay $9.99 monthly or a $69.99 annual fee.
What is wrong with this?
A lot actually...
Rosary beads have their origin in ancient Babylonian idol worship. It is primarily a series of 53 repetitive prayers to Mary, the highly venerated goddess of
Catholicism, in violation of the 1st Commandment. It also includes The Apostles Creed and a completely unbiblical Hail Holy Queen prayer.
First and foremost, the Rosary denies the preeminence of Christ as described in Colossians 1:13-20, It does so by concluding with this prayer...
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope, to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears; turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
There is absolutely no biblical support for Mary being our “most gracious advocate” or interceding on our behalf so that Christ will find us righteous. Only Jesus can do that. We are only declared righteous or justified by Him as Paul described in Romans...
“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21–26)
Scripture expressly forbids praying to the dead saints or anyone else like a dead pope or a dearly departed loved one. Deuteronomy 18:11 makes it clear that anyone who consults with the dead is detestable to the Lord.”
The Apostles Creed is equally at odds with biblical truth. It reads in part... “Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried, and He descended into Hell”...
The idea that Jesus went to Hell or the suffering side of Sheol/Hades to be further punished for our sins is completely unscriptural. It was the death of Jesus on the cross that sufficiently provided for our redemption. Some of Jesus' last words on the cross were...“It is finished”. (John 19:30) That means that the work of His atonement for our sins was complete... not that it had begun and He had more to do.
Luke 23:43 tells us that Jesus also said to the Good Thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Not, “I’ll see you in Hell…”
The Catholic Catechism is an instructional book summarizing Catholic beliefs. It contains unbiblical doctrines and traditions that Catholics have falsely “revealed” over the centuries concerning purgatory, penance, veneration of Mary, the priesthood (with enforced celibacy), and the concept of mortal and venial sin. None of these things are found in the Bible. The revealed Word of God (the Bible) alone is intended to be the sole source of doctrinal truth as indicated by Revelation 22:18–19.... not the Catholic Catechism.
Promotional material for the Hallow app focuses on what you can get from God such as peace, better sleep, and being part of a Catholic community. It's not supposed to be about what we can get from God, it's what we must give Him... things like submission, exclusivity, and faithfulness.
No one needs a mobile app to pray, much less pay for it!
Apps like Hallow will only serve to push one farther away from the truth of the Gospel. The closest the Bible comes to giving us an example (commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer) of how to pray is found in Matthew 6:9-13. It is not to be a prayer in itself but a pattern for prayer... worship, trust in God, requests, confession of sin, and submission to the Lord in all things.
Instead of wasting your time and money with this or any other “prayer” app, I suggest you turn to Jesus Christ, confess your sins, repent, and consider the words of Ephesians 2:8-10...
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith... and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God... 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Get it off your phone...
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Jesus didn't come down to earth, suffer and die to establish a book. He came to establish a church. To put all emphasis on a book and nothing else is to lose a lot of the truth of what Christ was trying to teach us. Before Jesus ascended into heaven He told his apostles, "I am going to send you what My Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Luke 24:49.
He didn't say "stay in the city until I write and give you the Bible". The Bible is Holy yes and is the word of God. But God is not limited by the Bible. He gave power and authority to the Church, the Holy Catholic Church, which He established, after the establishment of which came from it the Bible.
Do not limit yourself or try to box God into one book and that is it. Then we would be no better than the Jewish people of Jesus' time who only paid attention to the book of the law and failed to even recognize Christ and His work.
Jim,
Many articles by you are like a voice crying out in the wildness. I pray you keep crying out until the day of our Lord brings an end to the insanity facing us.
Marc