A man crashed a stolen car outside St. Joseph Shrine. Then he bolted. The Rector heard the crash and someone yelled "stop him." So Rev. Jean-Baptiste Commins — in full cassock — tackled him, and held him until the police came. Never underestimate a priest in a cassock.

Calm and Headspace were everywhere. Eric Kerekes used them but felt disconnected from his faith. So he helped build the intersection. @hallowapp now has over 22 million downloads. Full Tech Series episode on the Executive House YouTube channel. Link in the comments.

From Sister Miriam @onegroovynun - "Know that Mary already receives you into her sheltering heart, and she protects you by her strong love. This is her invitation to you, and it's for a time such as this. She is our mother, and she is gentle and faithful and steadfast and constant. Mary is unafraid. She's never assuming. She's never obtrusive. She's so loving and so respectful. And so we can just ask her to lead us and guide us throughout this time of preparation. She knows what she is doing, and she would love to truly care for us. And so under her mantle and close to Jesus, our lives will never be the same. I am just so honored to be with you and excited to pray with you and pray for you and just to see what God's going to do in your heart and in my heart as well because it's a lovely journey that we're going to make together as a family.” To Jesus Through Mary starts today! Join us: hallow.com/collections/2897

live your life with no regret because tomorrow is not promised

Last November, Daniel McKenna, a personal trainer known by his social-media handle “The Irish Yank,” shared a video on Instagram of himself leaving Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Greenwich Village. “We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for an ‘I went to Mass’ post,” McKenna wrote, touting the experience as “one of the best Masses I’ve ever been to in my life.” The video went viral, with hundreds of his followers commenting and thousands sharing it. A week later, McKenna filed another dispatch. “I went back to Mass,” he reported, “and yes it was another banger.” McKenna’s enthusiasm captures the spirit of a suddenly resurgent Catholic scene in the heart of Manhattan, where college students and young professionals are showing up in force at Masses and other Catholic events as if they are queuing up for the latest hot restaurant or club. Much of the fervor is focused on three specific parishes, all of which have seen a spike in Mass attendance and converts to the Catholic faith: At St. Joseph’s, the Sunday evening Mass is standing-room-only, which hardly dissuades the 150 or so people in the overflow who stood in the church’s narthex on a recent Sunday. The church also saw 88 people receiving the sacraments of baptism or confirmation at the Easter vigil this year, up from 35 last year. At St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on the Lower East Side, the number of people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, being received into the Church or returning to be confirmed also rose — to 70 from 40 the year before. And on Manhattan’s Upper East Side at St. Vincent Ferrer, which draws a slightly older demographic of young professionals and a growing number of young families, 77 people were expected to be received into the Church — through baptism or confirmation — compared with 50 last year. “The Holy Spirit is absolutely 100% in charge of this completely,” the pastor of Old St. Pat’s, Father Daniel Ray, a priest with the Legionaries of Christ, told the Register. Read the full story at: ow.ly/ZOBa50YEFcE

This Saturday, I was confirmed into the Catholic Church 🥹✝️. God has been so faithful in leading me here, and I’m so grateful for every step of this journey. A special thank you to @alexathallow for creating the @HallowApp ! This app has helped strengthen my relationship w/ the Lord.

From Fr. Dave Pivonka’s Daily Homily today - I remember a friend of mine one time as we were entering Holy Week, he was just very very honest with me and he said, “Father, I just I struggle with this. We go through Holy Week, we do this week after week, year after year.” He said, “I just don't know what to do. It's just the same thing year after year. We have Holy Week, we have Holy Thursday, Good Friday.” I just found myself thinking about that because I think often times that's where we are. We enter into Holy Week, and we know that there's something different about this week. There's something special about this week, but we just kind of go, and if we're honest, it's not different from last year. We just go and do the same thing. But I wonder if we could go into this week - what it would be like if we didn't know the ending. I mean, if I had this superpower that I could go into your mind and I could just erase the spiritual part, the memories in your mind. And imagine if you went into this week with just the things you've heard over the last couple of weeks - what you knew about Jesus, that He spent time with the poor, that He healed the man who was blind, that there was a dead man, Lazarus, and his family was suffering at the loss of him. And Jesus comes to them, and He eases their suffering, and He literally raises a dead man. I mean, for a second, imagine if you didn't know the end of the story. You weren't aware of what's going to happen on Thursday or Friday. And maybe that's how we can enter into this Holy Week. I invite you not to jump to the end of the story, not to jump to Good Friday or Easter Vigil, but just to stop during this week and be where Jesus is. -- Hear the rest on the app.