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

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Pints With Aquinas
Episode: How Hallow Became the #1 App in the World (with CEO, Alex Jones) | Ep. 515
Date: March 14, 2025
Host: Matt Fradd
Guest: Alex Jones, CEO and Co-founder of Hallow

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Episode Overview

This episode of Pints With Aquinas features an in-depth, candid conversation with Alex Jones, CEO and co-founder of Hallow, the world’s most popular Catholic prayer app. Matt Fradd and Alex discuss Hallow’s explosive growth, its mission to authentically serve the Church, the challenge and importance of reaching those far from faith, and how partnering with both traditional Catholic figures and high-profile celebrities has played a role in evangelization. The episode further explores personal spiritual struggles, the pitfalls and merits of fame, leadership, criticism, and humility in Christian mission.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Mission and Growth of Hallow

• Authentically Catholic at Every Turn
  • Alex Jones emphasizes:

    “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...” (00:00)

  • Hallow aims to guide users—especially those most fallen away—into a genuine relationship with Christ in accord with Catholic teaching.
• Startup vs. Nonprofit Debate
  • Alex breaks down the discernment that led to Hallow becoming a startup rather than a nonprofit or small business, inspired by the parable of the talents (38:03–39:44).

Encountering Mainstream and Popular Culture

• On Going on Tucker Carlson's Show

  • Alex recounts nerves and preparation:

    “His job at Fox was to make the most capable, like, public speakers look like idiots on national TV... But anyway, he was incredibly kind. It was just about Hallow and his family. His wife uses the app every day...” (01:11–03:31)

  • Tucker only promotes products he genuinely uses and likes.
  • Spike in Hallow's sign-ups following TV and media appearances was massive (10:14–11:02).

• Partnering with Celebrities (e.g., Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt, Gwen Stefani)

  • On the impact of celebrities:

    “Getting to partner with somebody like Mark Wahlberg or Chris Pratt, and they have the courage to be like, ‘Hey, I'm going to use my platform to invite other people to prayer.’” (26:44)

  • Celebrities’ testimonies and visibility reach people unlikely to encounter Catholicism through traditional means.
  • At the same time, “99% of the content is not by Mark or Chris, but by incredible spiritual and religious leaders.” (41:45–41:58)
  • Chris Pratt and Mark Wahlberg’s dynamic and humor during Hallow’s Lent programming is highlighted (31:39).

• Gwen Stefani’s Journey

  • She experienced a spiritual reawakening, prays the rosary daily via Hallow, and openly witnesses to her faith (89:35–90:50).

The Power of Catholic Spirituality for Modern Audiences

• Not Just Defending, but Leading with Beauty
  • Alex observes a recent shift:

    “I think we haven't really led—or we have this opportunity to lead—with the beauty of the spirituality of the faith... That for me, I think, is what people are hungriest for.” (14:06)

  • Surges in use for devotions like the Rosary and the Marian consecration.
  • “Rosary: 77 million prayed through the app in the last five years.” (15:36)

Transparency, Humility, and Handling Criticism

• Grace in Not Knowing

  • Both Alex and Matt stress that “I don’t know” is a perfectly legitimate—and sometimes best—answer (08:31–08:38).

• Learning from Criticism

  • Negative feedback is received humbly and constructively, and consultation with bishops and trusted Catholic advisors is ongoing (46:20–47:48).
  • Alex shares the funny misunderstanding regarding Cardinal Sarah’s gender (32:23–33:14).

• Risks and Pressure of Startup Life and Evangelization

  • Risk-taking for the sake of evangelization is rooted in gospel principles, but Alex stresses Hallow’s role as a “tool for the Church” rather than a necessary end itself (43:35–44:17).
  • Alex shares his struggle with criticism, leadership loneliness, and finding consolation in his faith (50:10–54:26).

Spiritual Practices and The Value of Suffering

• Dealing with Vanity and Pride

  • Both discuss how embarrassment and humiliation can draw one closer to God, using real-life anecdotes (68:41–73:14).
  • Alex applies metaphors from working out to show how spiritual “soreness”—being deeply humbled and criticized—leads to growth (69:59–71:02).

• On Silence and Contemplation

  • Cardinal Sarah’s book and audio content highlighted: “The coolest things we see at Hallow do just happen in silence... God just does such cool things in the silence.” (34:58)

• Books and Saints as Inspiration

  • The Lent Challenge features “A Song for Nagasaki” (81:06–88:54), with the extraordinary story of Takashi Nagai inspiring radical faith and surrender.

Leadership and Loneliness

• Crosses Carried by CEOs and Bishops
  • Matt and Alex reflect on unique difficulties faced by leaders:

    “...no CEO is allowed to complain about it because no one cares what a CEO whines about.” (53:32)

  • Importance of having mentors, spiritual directors, and a close circle for discernment and emotional health (46:20–47:48).

The Role and Danger of Fame

• Fame’s burden for celebrities and Christian leaders:

  “Fame is just such a terrible burden... It's this prison, and it's...awful” (56:50)

• Risks of fame and money, and the temptation to power, are discussed candidly (61:24–62:44).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Authenticity in Evangelization

  • “You just have to try it.” (16:43) —Alex, arguing that lived experience beats marketing pitches for Catholic prayer.

• On Embracing Mistakes and Humility

  • “One of the most excellent answers you can ever give is, I don't know.” (08:35) —Matt Fradd

• On Vanity

  • “Vanity of vanities. All things are vanity.” (63:23) —Alex paraphrasing Ecclesiastes

• On Fame and Burdens

  • “Fame is just such a terrible burden.” (59:34) —Alex Jones
  • “For Jonathan [Roumie]…your face is now Jonathan’s...So for a lot of people, when they pray...your face is now Jonathan's. You know, like, that's who you see as you pray, which is great.” (58:42)—Alex

• On Evangelization and Celebrity Partnerships

  • “The only real way you can do it is by doing crazy things that almost certainly are going to fail, like a Mark Wahlberg partnership or a Super Bowl commercial.” (44:10)

• On Suffering and Spiritual Growth

  • “When you meet with suffering, contempt or the cross, your first thought should be, what is this compared to what I deserve.” (54:37)—St. Josemaria Escriva, quoted by Alex

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Important Timestamps

• Opening Mission Statement — 00:00
• Tucker Carlson Interview Story — 01:11–03:31
• Spike in Users after Media Appearances — 10:14–11:02
• Strategy on Celebrity Partnerships — 26:44–41:45
• Reflections on Humility and Admitting Ignorance — 08:31–08:49
• Handling Criticism & Church Oversight — 46:20–47:48
• Book Highlight: A Song for Nagasaki (Lent Challenge) — 81:06–88:54
• Gwen Stefani’s Spiritual Return — 89:35–90:50
• Discussion on Leadership Crosses and Fame — 53:32–59:34
• Dealing with Vanity and Suffering — 63:23–73:14
• Final Reflections and Why Alex Continues — 94:25–98:10

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Underrated Features & Hidden Gems on Hallow

• Sister Miriam’s 33-Day Marian Consecration — Alex's favorite, “has changed my life” (21:18)
• Litany of Humility / Surrender Novena — Alex and Matt both recommend for spiritual growth (93:01)
• Daily Imitation of Christ (read by Jim Caviezel) — Intense and “beautiful” (93:01)
• Chant and Lo-Fi Sessions — Matt’s personal favorite (93:01–93:27)
• ASMR-style Bible stories — Matt requests for more of these! (93:27–93:49)

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rich, transparent look at the spiritual, pastoral, and practical challenges behind Hallow's rise to the world's top-used prayer app. At its core are themes of humility, leadership, evangelization in the digital age, and the beauty of Catholic spirituality—all presented with candid humor, vulnerability, and deep faith by both host and guest.

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[Listen or watch the full episode on YouTube or your podcast app for more stories and spiritual insights. Free trial at Hallow.com/mattfradd]

Transcript

[Alex Jones]

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 in 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 non profit where we give everything away for free or a startup. You know, obviously Jesus is saying, you take the one talent, you try to multiply it to 10, or you try to multiply it to 5. What I'd never really thought of before is the amount of risk involved in the person who went from 1 to 10. You're not putting it in a treasury bill. You're, you're not like doing normal trades. You're doing like, pretty crazy. That's the startup, like a startup goes from 1 to 10. But what we do have is this unique opportunity to reach out to the folks who have most fallen away.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

Bigger than this. This is Matt Pratt.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, yeah. Tucker wishes he could get. So what was that like?

[Alex Jones]

Tucker was great. Yeah. 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 prep 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, that's just what he, like, he'd come on and 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 the. 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, the whole Hallow 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 asked me a question in front of everybody or asked me a few questions. Do you, like. At the start of the interview where I was nervous, and he came up with some pretty good ones that were, like, pretty tough. Like, explain to me the evolution of the. The church's teaching on the death penalty and why. And, you know. And, like, you know, Tucker asking that would be. Anyway, so there's a lot of, like, really tough questions, like, as a Catholic you would have to answer, which I'm sure, you know, there are infinitely better people than I am to answer them. And anyway, he was incredibly kind. It was just about Hallow 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. He was. Yeah, he was very kind, very generous. It was. It was very nice of him to take it easy on me.

[Matt Fradd]

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 and went interview me?

[Alex Jones]

No, certainly not. I would never do that. The. 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. I was his, like, 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 we're 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 is 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Come on.

[Alex Jones]

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, you know, two months later and we did booked it to whatever.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah, I know that. I know exactly what you're talking about, about, you know, preparing for any kind of question. Sometimes it's to your disadvantage though, eh? Like, I remember 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.

[Alex Jones]

We used to live in Ireland.

[Matt Fradd]

Have, you know that. And you know, I had a friend be like you, he's gonna grill you. Because it was about my work with anti pornography stuff. And so I got really nervous, you know, 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 have just woken up at three in the morning, the interview would have went way better. But I thought you did a really good job. You did an excellent job. Why? Because you just kept talking about Jesus.

[Alex Jones]

Well, that's.

[Matt Fradd]

It was so simple, it was so pure. I loved it.

[Alex Jones]

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, it's tempting often when people like ask a question to just speak as though you're teaching, you know, or like, maybe don't tie it back to why you think that, you know, so like somebody will be like, so like, why is silence important? And you'll just Be like, well, because, you know, this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason. But, like, for me, it's like, well, but actually think, what. What has silence done for me in my life? Or, like, what has the Eucharist done for me in my life? Or what do we see through Hallow? Like, through the stories that, 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, you know, in line with the church. Yeah. And so anyway, we 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, you know, which I still am wildly unqualified to talk through, but. And a lot of. A lot of your conversations help, so I appreciate. We owe you. We owe you.

[Matt Fradd]

What do you mean? I was gonna turn.

[Alex Jones]

You do a great job of just articulating the church's teaching on things in a way that isn't abrasive or.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Thanks. Aggressive.

[Matt Fradd]

I think what's fun about the show is we have a diversity of wonderful people.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

So.

[Alex Jones]

And they do it.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah. Yeah, they do it. I throw wood on the fire.

[Alex Jones]

You do a decent job. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

And I also think it's so important, and this is something I've learned over time. Stop me if you've 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 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, yeah, I don't know if that makes. I could feel the room realize I'm full of it. And. 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.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

And I've just thought, you know, one of the most excellent answers you can ever give is, I don't know.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

I don't know enough about that to talk about it.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

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. No, but that's so great because no one can corner you after that. I just said, I don't know.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, you know, so that'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 Saint outside of whatever. Jesus and mary and Joseph, St. Teresa of Avalon. My dad essentially in terms of how to be a good dad. But he's a lawyer, and so his job is to speak with confidence even when he doesn't really. And so he'll be like. He'll get thrown into some AI litigation thing or something. He's like, I'm, like, 65 years old. I have no idea. But they ask, hey, Jeff, what should we do about this? And 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Well, I guess it depends, right? Like, it would be. It would be inappropriate, I suppose, for a lawyer, or, let's say the president, to be like, I don't know.

[Alex Jones]

I don't know.

[Matt Fradd]

So you've gotta learn how to be like, look, you know.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah. You know, you understand this. Yes. And you. I. I guess. I guess I understand that. That there's a rhetorical, you know, game there that you have to play maybe in certain instances, but not when it comes to.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. Plus, for me, it's an easy. Like, I'm not a priest. I'm not a bishop. I'm not a. Yeah. I just, you know, so Jesus in.

[Matt Fradd]

The back end of whatever the back end 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.

[Alex Jones]

Was crazy? It was. It was. Gosh, there was some crazy stat on this, but I think it was like everything other than really the super bowl commercial. Wow. It was a bigger spike. It was a bigger spike than on the first day, and it was three days of the same spike because it. 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, you know, Free, which was awesome. You know, didn't have to pay a Super bowl commercial.

[Matt Fradd]

It's so crazy. If you had have told me when did I stop? Like back in literally early days I started promoting.

[Alex Jones]

We have not partnered with anyone for this long at all.

[Matt Fradd]

Tell everybody why you continue to pause, Alex.

[Alex Jones]

If 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 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 probably. We have like a hundred people full time on the team and I bet at least 50 of them we say, hey, how did you first hear about Hallow? And it's through you. Come on.

[Matt Fradd]

Isn't that beautiful?

[Alex Jones]

It's so good.

[Matt Fradd]

I'm like a gateway drug.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, no, it's awesome.

[Matt Fradd]

I get people hooked onto Hallow and the diminishing.

[Alex Jones]

I just got a tweet. I was going to text you this yesterday, but somebody responded to. There was a somebody posted on X about converting to the faith or no, they said I'm protestant. But I love the Hallow. I've been praying with it. My 5 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 Fradd and converted to praise God. Isn't it church like five years ago.

[Matt Fradd]

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 changed my life. It's really weird. If you were to start gauging your identity based on YouTube comments.

[Alex Jones]

No. Well, it's humbling though. It'll keep you down.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, but It's. Yeah, it is huge. It's huge. But I mean, it's so easy to promote Hallow because, I mean, I don't know if you remember this. I interviewed an ex Antifa member.

[Alex Jones]

I remember. This is beautiful, right?

[Matt Fradd]

Who heard about Hallow and Pints and started praying the rosary and his whole life changed. And Andrew Clavin, do you know this?

[Alex Jones]

No.

[Matt Fradd]

Had him on the show, gave him a rosary and he tweeted that he's started praying the rosary a couple of times and he. And then on a backstage, he talked about how he was using Hallow to do it.

[Alex Jones]

Ah, I had no idea.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

So cool.

[Matt Fradd]

I love Andrew. He was so kind.

[Alex Jones]

I don't know what it is about the. It's literally. I mean, for us, it's whatever. We're big fans of your work, but mostly we're not gonna.

[Matt Fradd]

Well, I think you just gotta.

[Alex Jones]

You gotta believe it just works.

[Matt Fradd]

You just gotta believe in what you're promoting and then you're not really selling it. You just like telling people about this cool secret.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Which Hallow is not anymore.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, no, it's cool.

[Matt Fradd]

So kudos, Catholics.

[Alex Jones]

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 Avalar, 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 Romey, whatever. It's just like the rosary. You don't beat the rosary. I mean, so, you know, you guys.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

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 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 to your point, actually, earlier, about the Internet having. It's funny for Hala is 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. It's funny. I've never been very good at pitching Hallow. You do a much better job of it than I do. But, like, my mom thought it was a terrible idea. The first, like, when my mom takes her face super seriously, like a saint of a woman, deeply spiritual. And I, like, tried to tell her this idea, and she was like, oh, that's like, this is 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. So hopefully he fixes it. And. But 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 inside, 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 literature to the Hours just for 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. But. 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 Roumie 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, uh, 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 a game. We had, like, two.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

I was. I did Song of Songs.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, you did Song of Songs.

[Matt Fradd]

You know what's amazing about my wife? I don't know if it was amazing, but my wife listens to that while I'm traveling.

[Alex Jones]

No way.

[Matt Fradd]

Isn't that so beautiful?

[Alex Jones]

Well, it's romantic. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Come on.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. The.

[Matt Fradd]

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, like, 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.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. No, I mean, the tough part for me is I know everybody who's on the app. And so, like, the early days. Francis is a good friend of mine, and he's. 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, could you. 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 want to 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, my gosh. What a burn from Peter Kreif.

[Alex Jones]

So I was like, well, okay, I. You know, there's no. You obviously hate us, so there's no way that you're ever gonna do anything with this. But I. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Is there one on the app?

[Alex Jones]

Well, we tried to, but he's so.

[Matt Fradd]

Bad with technology, so people don't realize. I think he's exaggerating. He has no clue how to turn on the computer.

[Alex Jones]

No. We just sent a mic with a thing. But he was like, I can't. I'm not. I can't figure it out.

[Matt Fradd]

So I'm too old for this crap.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. But. So now sleep on your own. But anyway, love it or hate it, but that's cool things.

[Matt Fradd]

Well, I know 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, because 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.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

So I don't know. Really?

[Alex Jones]

Nothing. I don't know. I mean, I've listened to shows or something.

[Matt Fradd]

You know what it is? It might just Because I'm out of those formative years. It might just be that. Because. Yeah. I mean, I've listened to shows. 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, you know, and you're still trying to decide where you're going and who you are and what direction to go about.

[Alex Jones]

Or, like, when you're first coming back to your faith. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Maybe that's it.

[Alex Jones]

There's. Yeah, because it's a. 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. Yeah, Protestant Catholic debates or whatever. So there was a bunch of stuff that. But now mostly it is books for me now actually. Honestly. Hallo. I mean, I listen to how all the time. So it's like Sister Miriam's 33 day Marian consecration on the app has changed my life.

[Matt Fradd]

I didn't know you had that. Tell me what.

[Alex Jones]

That is so good. I'm so we launched it and it was funny because we.

[Matt Fradd]

And what version did she use?

[Alex Jones]

De Montfort.

[Matt Fradd]

She used the kind of Shorter de Montfort 40 in one. That little yellow brown page book sort of thing.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, yeah, okay. 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 Marian consecration. And so then I texted our team and I was like, let's launch. Let's relaunch the Sister miriam thing on January 1st, her feast day. And we're like, okay, let's do it. And it was like the biggest spike since, outside of Advent or Lent that we've had of just people praying it. And so I'm. I'm. I'm way behind. So what are we in now? February. But. March? The. But I'm. I've got like five or six days left in it. And so it's 33 days. Yeah, but it's so.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, I love. I love settled marriage.

[Alex Jones]

She's so good.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

The coolest thing we have. So, Sister Miriam, Mother Olga, Sister Bernice. Do you know Mother Olga or Sister Bernice?

[Matt Fradd]

Are they from the same order?

[Alex Jones]

No, they're all three different. Sister Bernice.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, Mother. Mother Olga.

[Alex Jones]

Yes. Mother Olga.

[Matt Fradd]

Yes. She was at the conference in Studentville.

[Alex Jones]

Yes, she was.

[Matt Fradd]

She's beautiful. My wife Fell in love with her.

[Alex Jones]

Just like Mother Teresa in the flesh is just so. She's lovely. And she'll just call you, and it'll just be like. It just feels like you're being spoken to by a saint. Which one she's criticizing you is. But, gosh, she's like a mother. Sister Miriam is just like. 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. They just make you, like, open, 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 you.

[Matt Fradd]

Because it's easy to, I think, to come off as patronizing.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. Okay, guys, so we're just in Ghana next to you. You know, if my voice did that, you'd be. No, I don't. He's not.

[Matt Fradd]

But you're right, it is her voice, but it's also.

[Alex Jones]

She just loves album Tell. For us Hallow 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, like, nails on a chalkboard, whatever. But you need somebody who really, like, believes it, who's really praying. That's why Jonathan's so good at this stuff. Cause it's like, you know, he's really passionate about it. And so, like, he's, you know, for Lent, it's the way. And then it's the story of Tekashi Nakai, which is an incredible story. But so he's, like, going through it and praying it and telling the story as he's reading. And he's like, gosh, this is just like. But it's such a beautiful. You need. You know, you can tell, like, authenticity, even in just audio. You can tell, I think. But yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah. Okay. So I'm really bad at, like, Hollywood names, but you got the guy who was from Guardians in the Galaxy. What's his name?

[Alex Jones]

Star Lord.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah, that's his official name. Seriously, what's his name?

[Alex Jones]

Chris Pratt.

[Matt Fradd]

Yes. Okay. How did you get Chris Pratt? What did that look like? How do you. 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.

[Alex Jones]

Sold my left arm. That's.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah. Cool.

[Alex Jones]

No, he posted about randomly. He has, like, 45 million Instagram followers, so that'll do. Which, like, Mark has 25 million or something, which is. I mean, they're both obviously massive, but he posted about doing Father Mike's Bible in the year on Hallow.

[Matt Fradd]

Are you kidding?

[Alex Jones]

So he just. This is like two years ago, he posted a screenshot just going through all of Father Mike's bilinear. He was like, day. It was like day 160 or something on it when he posted about, We've got Protestants.

[Matt Fradd]

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. Hallow. Father Mike Schmidt's Ascension presents. We could go on. Yeah, well, yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Jonathan Ruby.

[Matt Fradd]

Yes, ewtn.

[Alex Jones]

Well, 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Baron should have said that.

[Alex Jones]

Bishop Baron, Pope Francis.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Which is.

[Matt Fradd]

We're just rushing ahead with this beauty. All right. Chris Pratt, he posted about Father Mike.

[Alex Jones]

Father Mike. And so we reached out to his team and we just said, hey, would you be, you know, 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, you know, awesome. It's changed my life. Father Mike's incredible. This, like, Bible in year, which, like, Father Mike goes through the hole, you know, like, it's.

[Matt Fradd]

And he's not holding back. The Catholic.

[Alex Jones]

No, it's, like, real intense. Like John six 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 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 like, it's so. It takes real courage to be like, no, I'm gonna stand up and be like, hey, you guys should pray, or, like, you guys should meet Jesus. Like that. I'm gonna 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, like, Hollywood perspective. And I don't know, we also get this, like, Hallow. Hallow's goal is, like, the core, the soft spot of our mission is to reach out to the folks who have most fallen away. Like, 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 an honor. We have, like, monks and priests and bishops and nuns who are praying with the app every day. But, like, 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 that's. 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 going to 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, oh, 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 going to do this. And he has 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. He was like, I've done a bunch of voiceover work, and I don't enjoy voiceover work as much as, like, on camera work because it feels less. It feels more like I'm just working. Like, it's less like I'm, like, really involved. And it's like, for some reason, there was just something different here. Like, it was like, I loved this. Like, this was like an hour where I just got to, like, be engrossed in scripture and just the Lord and, like, what a blessing that was. But anyway, it was hilarious because he's. He's. 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 Markle.

[Matt Fradd]

Are they together in a room recording?

[Alex Jones]

How does we try to make it feel like they're together in a room? But Mark.

[Matt Fradd]

Did you fly out to record him? Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Mark was in London, in Paris, shooting a movie, so we went there to record with him. And then Chris was in. Chris was in la. But anyway, Mark. Mark, like, 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, as an avenger, as star Lord, knows a thing or two about discipline and fasting and whatever. But just to be clear, I'm the main guy. Chris is the second guy. He's me first. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Amazing.

[Alex Jones]

That's so funny. 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 Seurat on Saturdays goes through his kind of silence. He wrote this book, Power of Silence. And 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 prayer is 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 him.

[Matt Fradd]

What was it like getting Cardinals, Sarah? And if you don't mind, tell people about the criticism you received recently about Cardinal Sira.

[Alex Jones]

I told you this off air, but the. We got a. I got an email. We get. 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, you know, 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. Not a.

[Matt Fradd]

Not. Sarah.

[Alex Jones]

It's not Cardinal, Sarah. But anyway, he was. We reached out to him, like, last minute. And where does he live? In Rome.

[Matt Fradd]

He lives in Rome. Okay.

[Alex Jones]

As that's where we recorded at least.

[Matt Fradd]

And.

[Alex Jones]

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.

[Matt Fradd]

What a man.

[Alex Jones]

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. That's, you know, and he was like, oh, okay. Like, yes. And especially if it's, you know, just the audio and whatever. And so we flew over there and this was Alessandro, my co founder, went over there with one of our audio engineers. We had this. These two folks on our team are international folks who did a great job working with him and his team and recorded with them.

[Matt Fradd]

And it was funny.

[Alex Jones]

They were like, they were in the Vatican. And so there's all this noise and like, whatever. It's very bad audio quality. So we're like, it's going to 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 had this. We also had someone on our team. This is the other cool part about Hallow is like you have these folks on the team who just have these, you know, like we have our illustrator who obviously creates illustrations for the app which are beautiful. But then everybody on the team has these like unique gifts. And we had someone who is a product designer who also makes icon icons, just makes icons, like paints them. And so actually our international guy had purchased one for his wife as a gift and we were like, can we bring a gift to the cardinal?

[Matt Fradd]

And.

[Alex Jones]

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 the. 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, we had this one young woman who had never heard that she was beautiful. 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 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 Sirrah, who wrote this incredible book on silence, and then try to lead people in silence, I think will be. I think will be really powerful. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

How. 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 bought 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. What is Hallows kind of response to that?

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. Like, somebody asked me the other day, like, some journalist asked, like, do you. Have you. Have you made mistakes at Hallow?

[Matt Fradd]

No.

[Alex Jones]

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 thousand extra users or whatever like that. 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, in a relationship with the Lord that's in alignment with church teaching. And hopefully Hallow can be a tool for the church to lead people. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

It.

[Alex Jones]

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 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.

[Matt Fradd]

How does a startup distinguish from these other things?

[Alex Jones]

Well, there's. It's. It's. There's. There's It's a combination of a bunch of different things. There's like a legal entity structure. So like 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 how you, what kind of funding you raise. And so like, 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 it 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 going to invest in 100 different things. I know that 90, 95 of them won't work and 5 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 any like that. All that sounds awful.

[Matt Fradd]

The.

[Alex Jones]

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 ten 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 and you try to multiply it to 10, or you try to multiply it to 5 and the one person buries their talent and plays it safe. And what I'd never really thought of before is the amount of risk involved in the person who went from 1 to 10 or from 1 to 5. 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 incredible risk to go. 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 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. A big company in a normal company is like 20% growth a year or whatever. And we then both spent a good bit of time in prayer. And what we realized was, and when we talked to, we have these great groups of spiritual advisors, bishop priests, a 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 gonna 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 is around or if like, whatever, Elon doesn't get to Mars or you know, like there's. 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 Halo 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. Like, 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 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 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, 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, tap on Mark's face. So the algorithm puts Mark's face up higher. And so it 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 with 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 pumping you up on Fridays, but just a little piece on Fridays throughout Lent. But all that being said, that's the context for why we do any of this. 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. 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 be better.

[Matt Fradd]

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. I don't know. For me and others, what seems to be very important is to have trusted people in our orbit who can see things clearly, you know, 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.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, yeah, for me. So Bishop Rhodes, Bishop Kevin Rhodes, who's of the Diocese of Fort Wayne, South Bain, South Bend, has been. He'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. And here's how I think you should be better, which has happened all the time. And if he ever said to me, I think you need to take this off or you need to change this, I would do it immediately. Like, I'm obedient to the church.

[Matt Fradd]

Obviously.

[Alex Jones]

I have a spiritual director who's phenomenal. Opus Dega 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 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 that group, it's. Yeah, 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 really pretty phenomenal for us.

[Matt Fradd]

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, you know, so, like, one is to make us non reflective, not attentive, not repentant of the ways that we mess up.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

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 are terrified. You're just curled up in a corner, not willing to go out and risk anything, lest you be a stumble, stumbling block to anybody. And that's the other way. And so when you read people like Jose Maria Escriva, 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 gonna mess up? Make mistakes when you try to do that, obviously, just like the apostles did. But so what?

[Alex Jones]

Well, that's yeah. People ask me like, do you feel like you're attacked by like spiritual forces? And it's interesting, 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. He has to, you have to like, you know, it's like it really is painful physically. And this sound engineer is like, ah, you know, I've never had this happen. This is terrible. I can't believe what happened. Like, you know, because this is. 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 has 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Are you cool with that?

[Alex Jones]

Are you gonna be okay with that? And I'd be like, yeah, fine, I don't care, whatever. But it, like, it does actually kind of mess with you. Like, it's like there's, it's, it, yeah, it does actually like you. I like to think I'm some whatever. But like, it does, it does make you sad. It's like, oh, that's sad that you want me dead. Like, I don't, I don't month. I, I hope so. It like, it does physically. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Most of us aren't. Matt Walsh, like, Matt Walsh genuinely seems uninterested in you hating.

[Alex Jones]

Well, I'm sure after, eventually, I'm sure, you know.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah, I'm sure it does in its own way.

[Alex Jones]

You have. But, but I don't know. For me, the funny thing about those times, and sometimes they're mistakes and, 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, lineage of 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 there's like 100 people on our team. And not everybody's going to be a fan of me on. Of 100 people. And that's fine. Like, you don't have to be a fan of me to work it out. But the. There's certainly. And that, like, that hurts a lot more than that emotionally. Hurts a lot more than some random thing. Yeah, yeah. Some.

[Matt Fradd]

Like a fake night.

[Alex Jones]

Like, hey, man, this is 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. Van, for me, it is all vanity. And if I, if I, 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. Then it's like, okay, then why do you care what people like? It's all just. Van. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah, but that can cripple you.

[Alex Jones]

Right?

[Matt Fradd]

They can also be like, okay, whatever, yeah, I'll just do it.

[Alex Jones]

Well, it's like, I don't know.

[Matt Fradd]

It's as best as I can do it.

[Alex Jones]

It's like.

[Matt Fradd]

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?

[Alex Jones]

That's so good.

[Matt Fradd]

He can use everything.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

But it's like Benedict when he was elected, he said, I trust that you're able to use humble instruments or blunt instruments.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

And then you think, golly, if he's a blunt instrument, I don't know what I am.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. And then the. Well, 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. Like, 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Y.

[Alex Jones]

But I don't know. It's. It's. It's. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

It's. 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 is a particular cross that not a lot of people can resonate with.

[Alex Jones]

Imagine being a bishop. Oh, be awful.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

St. Jose Maria Escriva. 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, your first thought should be, what is this compared to what I Deserve.

[Matt Fradd]

I don't do that. I just think this sucks. God, why have you abandoned me?

[Alex Jones]

Why'd you give me. I remember this. I remember 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. What cross am I giving you right now? And I was like, wow, 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. I actually feel the same. I have this enormous blessing to get to have this role, and it's like, I love it. It's awesome work. 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, 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 we have this great team of people who are phenomenal. You do?

[Matt Fradd]

I got to meet them.

[Alex Jones]

No, they're great. They're. And I have, like, two co founders that are. I was just walking. I just had lunch with them the other day, and I was like, you know how sad it would be to just have to do this all alone? And instead to get to have, like, three of you. Like, it feels like you're, like. It feels like there's three of you. And, like, 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. You get a. 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 Roumie or whatever it is. It's like, it's this prison, and it's. It's so.

[Matt Fradd]

Right.

[Alex Jones]

Awful.

[Matt Fradd]

Like, no one's interested in hearing a.

[Alex Jones]

Famous celebrity being like, oh, it's hard to have everybody love me. And it's like, no, honestly, you can't eat dinner. Like, you can't go.

[Matt Fradd]

You were telling me who.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, I was at dinner with Kevin and Jonathan, and it was just Ada. And Kevin is. Oh, man. Kevin James is, like, one of the closest people to Christ I know in my life. Jonathan also is. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

You are kidding me.

[Alex Jones]

No.

[Matt Fradd]

At what point did you go? We should have went somewhere else.

[Alex Jones]

Well, yeah, I. I didn't choose the place, but I was like, should we go to, like, a private. And 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 a 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, what a great way to put it.

[Alex Jones]

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 craz things that are, like, treating him like Jesus.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

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.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

And it's this enormous weight.

[Matt Fradd]

The other thing, I think we need.

[Alex Jones]

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. They're coming and sharing, like, hey, you changed my Life. I was about to kill myself. And I guess of you, and you, like, you want to be infinitely present, but that's. That's like the 200 in first person. And again, all of this is. Everybody's going to be like, oh, who gives a crap? Like, you're famous. And like, you know, get over. It's such a hard thing to complain about these guys, these celebrities. Yeah. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Anyway, so, yeah, Jonathan, roomie. I want to give him a shout out. He came on my.

[Alex Jones]

He's so good.

[Matt Fradd]

He came to my studio up in Steubenville, and we had a lovely conversation. People should go watch it if they haven't. And he was so kind. 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 just kind of 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 it was so. He was such a beautiful guy and. But here's the other thing I think about celebrities that we really need to cut them some slack is. Who was. Who was it who said this? Did you ever listen to Smashing Pumpkins back in the day? Who's the lead singer? No, Bald head guy.

[Alex Jones]

Three songs, right?

[Matt Fradd]

Love them. Three of the songs.

[Alex Jones]

Three of the songs.

[Matt Fradd]

You can love all of us.

[Alex Jones]

I do love their songs, though.

[Matt Fradd]

Is everything okay?

[Alex Jones]

Are you. No, I was just checking that song I loved.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, okay.

[Alex Jones]

You go for it. Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

Oh, classic.

[Matt Fradd]

Like, don't play the song. 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? So what does that do to a person? You know, it does good Things, there's bad things like they're carrying a cross that you're not gonna carry. And the idea that if you had their fame, you'd be fine and totally down to earth and normal, especially as.

[Alex Jones]

Kids, like watching somebody like Justin Bieber or somebody go through their whole. Yeah, Brittany.

[Matt Fradd]

God bless beautiful Brittany.

[Alex Jones]

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.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

And fame can really destroy. And it just puffs you. I mean, it just naturally puffs you up.

[Matt Fradd]

If everybody the best, I think, because actually Aquinas goes over all of these different things. Fame, power, money, you know, physical pleasures, spiritual pleasures, etc. And how the good does not abide in any of these even. Even goods of the soul because it's got alone. Eh? But I really think a lot of these things, really, we want them for power.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Fradd]

Because money is transactional. You want money in order to attain something else. And I think it's. You want fame. Why?

[Alex Jones]

Well, it's.

[Matt Fradd]

It's kind of transactional as well.

[Alex Jones]

It's.

[Matt Fradd]

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 going to be flooded and destroyed and everything will be ruined. You know, I think that's what we're. Why we want it.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

And, you know, whether you've got Jonathan Roumie power or Alex Jones power, my power or Alex Jones power, the other Alex Jones power.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, man, that's so funny.

[Matt Fradd]

We should not put your face on this thumbnail and see if we can get this to like a million views. Alex Jones.

[Alex Jones]

They're so disappointed immediately.

[Matt Fradd]

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 you. Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. I don't know. You know, I think that's. I think that's right. And I'm sure it's right on a deeper level than I can appreciate. I mean, for me it's the. And I've been praying with this for the last couple of weeks, but it's Just like vanity of vanities. All things are. All things are vanity.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

And like, 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? It'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 try to shut myself within myself, 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? Like, if I'm going to say, like, 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.

[Matt Fradd]

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. Like, 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?

[Alex Jones]

I think, like, well, there's a bunch of things there. I am very much at the beginning of whatever 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 Avila and St. John of the Cross are just like, you have to rip it all out, like, pretty aggressively fasting 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 on 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 in his prayer. Oh, 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 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 you're. 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, like, your attachment. If your attachment is. 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 like, I had this one. I had this one interview on Fox Business, which I is like a. 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, like, Relative is a very small show. And so I wasn't nervous. I was like, oh, whatever. Like, I. 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, 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 it. 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 Hallow can work with technology to, you know, help somebody grow closer to God. Doesn't that feel that odds? 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

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 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. Same thing, like 100. I had my team, like we had some all hands thing or a team got together and we did like 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 of them. And I was like, it's just like hurt. Like, it's just like, 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, 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 said, I'm just kidding.

[Matt Fradd]

I was like, it's a big.

[Alex Jones]

You've got the T shirt on. Showing off the. But I was like, you know, if. If. 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 muscles really hurt and you can't lift anything. And they're like, what are you. What are you even talking about? It's like, yeah, when your muscles are really sore. Like when you. When you really feel that you're fatiguing your muscles completely. Like, that is when they're growing the most. And they'd 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, I think the blessing of. We were talking about this before, like, how exhausting this thing can be. I'm sure for you. But it's one of the blessings of. It is like, you get him. You get scorned so often and so frequently, you know, which, like, 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, you know?

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

Wow. The heart of Catholicism. It was a.

[Matt Fradd]

It was a very friendly audience. But there was. Is 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 realize 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 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. And 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.

[Alex Jones]

What's the fifth one?

[Matt Fradd]

Someone from the audience. Sorry, we said there's 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. 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, booted up. And then it turned out the fifth one really wasn't that interesting. And so it kind of wrapped up in 20 seconds.

[Alex Jones]

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, you know, the one thing is, you know, you. 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 for today. And I was thinking. I was thinking to my wife after. To your point, I was like, what would I, in a normal conversation, if I was doing that? What would I have done?

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

Had I not been so focused on myself, I would have just done, like, what you said. I would have been like, you know, I forgot your question. Honestly, what was the second half of your question?

[Matt Fradd]

Totally.

[Alex Jones]

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, like, just freeze on national tv. But anyway, it's like I. 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, you know, it'd be a lot better for you. It's like, it'd be a lot better for your soul if you.

[Matt Fradd]

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. I'd be really afraid of just not doing a good job representing the Catch. 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?

[Alex Jones]

That's too bad because I was going to say if Joe wanted me on, I was going to have you on.

[Matt Fradd]

Well, once it goes down the line, I'll point people to Jimmy.

[Alex Jones]

No, no, not him. Not him. This guy.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

Oh, yeah, he's good at it.

[Matt Fradd]

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 want to look like an idiot. That's. That's a, that's a prideful, vain reason. The other reason is I just don't want to misrepresent. I really don't. Just.

[Alex Jones]

I know.

[Matt Fradd]

And so I. It's hard to discern which one.

[Alex Jones]

Well, but the issue is it's usually both like that. That's. I was, I was.

[Matt Fradd]

They're intertwined.

[Alex Jones]

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. 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 Roumie, 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 actually worried about, or like, if I were to ask you specifically for what I want, I would like. And it sounds so stupid saying it out loud, but it's like, I would like to like, you know, 2.75x last lent and hit, you know, 1 million people in the challenge or whatever the made up numbers that I had set as targets that I just, you know. Yeah, whatever. Just imagine. Whatever. Just numbers. And I was like. And I would like retention. Like, I'd like people. And then in prayer, I was. 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. Like, 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. Like, 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. He's like, okay, so then don't stress about it. Like, I got it. Like, it's. 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. He will decrease, so I will. 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 we. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

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. Yeah, 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 it's 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.

[Matt Fradd]

I don't.

[Alex Jones]

I don't. I can't really explain that.

[Matt Fradd]

And this gets back to what we said earlier. It's when you try to fluff it.

[Alex Jones]

That you have something. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

And you know what? Like, even. 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 once 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.

[Alex Jones]

Right.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

You know what I mean?

[Matt Fradd]

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. It just showed me, like, no, you actually don't look like an idiot. Yeah, you know, you actually. What? You look like an idiot. We look like. 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.

[Alex Jones]

Yes.

[Matt Fradd]

Come on. Like, none of us are chatgpt or whatever. We're not supposed to know these things. We're not.

[Alex Jones]

Chatgpt doesn't know most things either.

[Matt Fradd]

But.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, but no, I agree. It's the. It's the honesty that. I mean, for me, it's 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.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

I have a book on the table.

[Matt Fradd]

What is the book? I've heard about it.

[Alex Jones]

It's not my book, but I'm promoting it.

[Matt Fradd]

Okay, well, from reading it, it's. And can I see it?

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, you can. It's beautiful. I can give it to you if you want.

[Matt Fradd]

Yes, I want that.

[Alex Jones]

There's a speech in there. You might.

[Matt Fradd]

Although if. If you're reading it, I'll just buy it.

[Alex Jones]

I might. It's on. No, I've read it. That's the book that we're. A piece. So the Lent Challenge is on the way, which is St. Jose Maria Esca'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. So what we wanted to do was find somebody that at least folks in the west didn't really know and who could match kind of St. Jose Maria Escriva's intensity.

[Matt Fradd]

This guy does that.

[Alex Jones]

He does. Really?

[Matt Fradd]

So everyone watching, it's called. Or listening, A Song for Nagasaki by Father Paul Glynn.

[Alex Jones]

A story of Takashi Nagai, servant of God.

[Matt Fradd]

Okay.

[Alex Jones]

But he's the story that we're going through this Lent. There's a speech in there that I was gonna reference, but the. 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. Bring to life or add color or give an example of what St. Jose Maria Escriva is talking about. I am going to give this to you because I've been giving all these away. Anyway, the gosh, it's such a. So he's. So he's. 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 9, 1945, he's like a thousand feet from where the bomb explodes. And like it's. Gosh, it's. This book does a beautiful job of explaining what it is, but it's like hell. 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 5, 10 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 schoolgirls 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, 10 minutes. Anyway. He likes 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 at. He's kind of one of the leader. 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 it. And he's by this point, very deep into his conversion, very Catholic, takes his faith very seriously. And he's lost 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. 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 away. Blessed be the Lord. Thank the Lord for allowing us to be the sacrifice. And it's just like, 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 the 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 have 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 we hate you. And Nagasaki was hands in prayer. And they say it's because of Takashi Nagai. And they, like, he 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, like, this radical, crazy surrender, even in the worst possible things, and this radical, crazy faith. And Saint Jose Maria Escriva. Like, this is my point. Like, he's a very intense guy. It's like a. You know, you read his stuff, and it's like, you need somebody who's, like, really pretty intense to live that up or to bring that to life. And Tekashi Nagai does. So anyway, that's the story of Tekashi Nagai, which is the story we're journeying through for Lent.

[Matt Fradd]

That's amazing. How does Father Paul fak Paul into this? Father Glenn.

[Alex Jones]

This is. So. Tekashi Nagai wrote a bunch of books. He's actually also a poet, so he writes a bunch of poetry, too. But Paul Glenn gives the biography. Father Glynn gives the biography of his life. So it's a biography.

[Matt Fradd]

How did he. Do, you know, how he came into contact?

[Alex Jones]

I don't know. I don't think it was a direct. I think it's a. 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 it's a. 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 Tekashi doesn't usually write about. It's not. He doesn't have a biography like Saint Teresa of Avila does or anything. And so it takes a. It takes a. I've been hearing about it more and more lately. Yeah. Takashi.

[Matt Fradd]

That book in particular.

[Alex Jones]

Really?

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

There we go.

[Matt Fradd]

Don't know how I like it. Could you. Different topic. Can you tell me about Gwen Stefani?

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

Is that her name?

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

She used to be the lead singer of no Doubt.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah, she is.

[Matt Fradd]

She was big back in the 90s.

[Alex Jones]

Maybe in the 90s. People still love her, either. We tried to get an ad saying ain't no Hollaback girl. I'm a hollowback girl. Okay. And there's some copyright.

[Matt Fradd]

Again, I. My. So just like musician. When I didn't know Chris Pratt's name was. Yeah, obviously these are very famous people. It's my fault that I don't know who she is. I. I mean, I remember some of her music, but. But what's. I mean, if you're able to tell me what's her spiritual journey been? Is she a practicing Catholic or.

[Alex Jones]

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 5ish 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 and 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 re version, 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, you know, recently and has been praying the rosary. This is a beautiful conversation about, like, you know, how to pray the rosary and how to give ourselves to Mary and.

[Matt Fradd]

Come on, that's incredible, dude.

[Alex Jones]

But it's really cool. I mean, 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 prays 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.

[Matt Fradd]

Hallow.com Matt Fred.

[Alex Jones]

Is that it?

[Matt Fradd]

I think it is. Try that out. If that doesn't work, just go to hallow.com on your computer. The promo code is Matt Frad. Pretty sure. Why am I asking you that? You got 8 million. 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.

[Alex Jones]

It's better now, is it? Oh, yeah, it's way better. It used to be terrible.

[Matt Fradd]

Okay.

[Alex Jones]

It was like, when you started promoting, it was just like, Purple Square.

[Matt Fradd]

Oh, sure.

[Alex Jones]

Back then. Sessions on it.

[Matt Fradd]

I love that. That sales pitch. Try it. It used to be terrible. Way better.

[Alex Jones]

It's not as bad.

[Matt Fradd]

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?

[Alex Jones]

No, there's. There's a lot. I mean, I go through kind of, like, seasons. That is 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 a St. Joseph, one that Sister Miriam does. Oh, 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 is the Litany of Humility and the surrender novena are the big ones. But. But it's People, people. Those are decently popular. So that. That one's. I really like the chant on the app, though.

[Matt Fradd]

My personal favorite is your Lo Fi.

[Alex Jones]

Lo Fi. Yeah. You're welcome. Or this. There's this Bible story Song of. It's this beautiful, beautiful reading of. Song of Songs.

[Matt Fradd]

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.

[Alex Jones]

It's romantic. It's romantic.

[Matt Fradd]

Yeah. But I always go back to Scott, man, he's got such a good voice for that. What, do you. Still doing Bible stories?

[Alex Jones]

Because I feel like we haven't done as many of them. We have a lot of them.

[Matt Fradd]

Can I. We should add something that's embarrassing and probably says something terrible about me. I don't think it really does. I like some asmr.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Fradd]

And I know that ASMR gets weird. I get it. But having someone just Read quietly the Gospel of Luke or anything.

[Alex Jones]

No, it's really good.

[Matt Fradd]

That doesn't get weird.

[Alex Jones]

I love it where no one's making.

[Matt Fradd]

Weird mouth noises in my ears. I would love that.

[Alex Jones]

Yeah. We can add some more cardinal serat.

[Matt Fradd]

To do something asmr.

[Alex Jones]

Please don't sleepy. That'd be tough with the accent.

[Matt Fradd]

Maybe see if you can find a Cardinal Sarah.

[Alex Jones]

She might be able to do it. Not Cardinal Sarah.

[Matt Fradd]

I'd pray for us.

[Alex Jones]

Lord have mercy.

[Matt Fradd]

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 Hallow personally at some point? Is that too personal a thing to ask on air?

[Alex Jones]

No. I would do this for the rest of my life if God lets me.

[Matt Fradd]

Because I 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 I've actually. Well, I won't say any more than that. Two companies where the.

[Alex Jones]

The.

[Matt Fradd]

The CEO had to essentially be overthrown because. Because it out. The vision of what this thing could be outgrew the vision of the found. That's not always the case, obviously. Yeah.

[Alex Jones]

I mean, there's an important piece in there about, like, governance. So, like, I don't want Halo 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 in 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 exhaust. It's a tiring thing to do. Like, it's a lot. Especially during, like, the crazy times. It's nice because there's like, you know, the summer's 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, 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 a 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, you know, we're able to try to grow a little bit in our surrender of the Lord, in our faith, thanks to the, you know, grace that God gave us through Hallow. And then God gave us a kid, our first. Our first, you know, 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. And it's just like. Like, I would do that. It's. It. 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, oh, somebody changed your life now. You changed my heart. Oh, you brought me into Jesus. Oh, you brought. 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 Hallow might. It will either outgrow me or crash and burn terribly and everyone will hate me and whatever. That's totally fine.

[Matt Fradd]

Most people already know.

[Alex Jones]

It's. It's good because the name. The name is. Gives me some anonymity.

[Matt Fradd]

It's nice.

[Alex Jones]

It's like if you Google Alex Jones, I'm probably never going to come up. And no matter what I do. Exactly.

[Matt Fradd]

There's always going to be an Alex.

[Alex Jones]

Jones more popular than, you know, unless I'm fined a billion dollars. Yeah, but I don't know. So it's. 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.

[Matt Fradd]

All right. Thanks for being on the show.

[Alex Jones]

You're rock, man. Have a good one.