Lent is just around the corner and the #1 prayer app, Hallow, is offering a “challenging” way to make the most out of the 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For the fourth consecutive year, Hallow is running its Pray40 Lenten prayer challenge, which provides participants with daily prayers that will give them something to reflect on for the whole day.
The daily audio prayer sessions run from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday, with each session available on the Hallow app. As in previous years, the Hallow team is supporting their daily prayers with reflections on an incredible piece of Catholic literature. In 2024, they had Catholics reading He Leadeth Me, the first-hand story of Fr. Walter Ciszek, who was imprisoned for more than 20 years in the Soviet Union, first in solitary confinement and then in a Siberian labor camp.
This year, there are two books they are encouraging with the Pray40 challenge: The Way by St. Josemaría Escrivá, and A Song for Nagasaki written by Fr. Paul Glynn.
The latter is a biography of Servant of God Takashi Nagai, a survivor of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki. In the wake of that destruction, Nagai threw himself into the service of those wounded in the blast, subsequently beginning a journey that would lead him from Shintoism to atheism and eventually to Catholicism.
Despite distractions
While it is not necessary to pick up the two books to take part in the Pray40 challenge, Hallow wrote of the works:
“As we meditate on the lives of those who follow Christ, we’ll see that despite the noise and distraction of today, Jesus died on the cross so that we might experience His love, His peace, and, ultimately, eternal life. We need only to follow His Way.”
Taking a prayer challenge with Hallow was described as “a goldmine for busy people who want to make time for prayers,” by Aleteia’s own Theresa Barber, after she took an Advent prayer challenge in 2023. She praised the Hallow team for producing reflections that are short and stick with you for the rest of the day:
“I took part in Hallow’s Advent prayer challenge last December: It was very doable to keep up with daily, and it led me to have the most present and peaceful Advent I’ve had in years. I’m really looking forward to taking part in the Lent Pray40 Challenge,” Barber commented.
Download the Hallow app to take part in the daily Lenten prayer challenge, Pray40, and visit Ignatius Press to get 20% off your copy of A Song for Nagasaki today.
