On December 30, 2020, Jonathan Roumie, the Hollywood actor got on a lively Instagram Live session with Father Willy Raymond C.S.C. of Holy Cross Family Ministries for an hour of what he called a ‘Fantastic Chat & Prayer Time’. What was a Hollywood actor doing with a Catholic Priest who heads a Family Ministry that inspires, promotes and fosters the spiritual well-being and prayer life of families around the world? The answer for a world that is looking for prayer and renewal is Prayer. You can watch Jonathan discuss PrayFest with Father Willy Raymond C.S.C. here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJb8MJFgzIQ/
Jonathan Roumie is the actor who plays Jesus in the record breaking multi season television series The Chosen which delivers its content through an app. The Chosen has raised over $16 million through a unique crowdsourcing initiative. A devout Catholic, Jonathan is known to millions around the world for his stunning portrayal of Jesus Christ. Watch Jonathan Roumie in The Chosen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-AJdKty74M
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a worldwide surge of focus on prayer and spirituality. Everywhere around the world, people, families and communities have reached out for spiritual resources to find strength in this time of fear, loss and the looming shadow of Death itself.
This has led organizations like the 2000 year old Catholic Church that traces its apostolic lineage to St. Peter the Apostle of Christ who served in Rome as the first Pope to look at new and innovative ways to serve its people. Holy Cross Family Ministries, founded by their iconic founder Venerable Patrick Peyton in the 1940s, have always been in the forefront of the Church’s adoption of new technologies. A young Father Patrick Peyton walked into the center of Hollywood seeking out Catholics who would pray with him before the masses.
The Catholic Church was a media pioneer taking the first printing presses into the New World. They played catalyst to the spread of learning and literacy. These printing presses would be the forerunner of today’s media world, marked by print, television, film, the internet and the emerging technologies of this decade, augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality.
The Church and the Media have traditionally been at loggerheads, often with conflicting agendas on their plate. Culture, Politics, and the Moral State of Society have provided for fertile battle grounds of debate, discussion and dissension. All that changed in 2020. The threat of COVID-19 has brought them to the common ground of preserving and sustaining our society. And the common ground of collaboration is digital networking platforms.
Networking platforms are powerful stages for prayer and spirituality. Holy Cross Family Ministries know for its media rich approach through Family Theater Productions, Catholic Mom, The Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life, Museum of Family Prayer, PRAY the Film, Father Peyton Family Institutes and now: PrayFest.
The Pandemic has changed our spirituality and the way we pray. And there is a new way to pray online. PrayFest is the Holy Cross Family Ministries response to this need. PrayFest is a worldwide community dedicated to Catholic Prayer on the Familheey app that is targeted at families, communities and organizations at this challenging pandemic time.
PrayFest unifies the spiritual efforts of 27 Holy Cross Family Ministry centers across 17 countries bringing their communities together to pray. Across the US, Latin America, Africa and Asia, Holy Cross Family Ministries are bringing their people onto to one digital platform—but now the silos of country borders disappear.
The faithful are now learning the new spirituality of the #Prayfie: read the prayer, listen to the song, imbibe the teaching and respond with an ‘Amen’, the hands praying emoji or with your own comments. You read that right. A #Prayfie could be a prayer meme, a video prayer, or even a music video. And share this with your communities.
As you can imagine, all of this has caused a stir in religious circles. Are the traditional churches doing the right thing, getting on these platforms? The answer to that lies in the new communities springing up online. One interaction at a time, they’re starting to connect, engage and grow with their communities across the world. They are bound in their mission by common hashtags that unify their vision.
Year 2020 has been unprecedented in so many ways. Global disasters like the Covid-19 pandemic and widespread wildfires have devastated our countries. We have had political fires all over the world. These difficult times of death, loss, stress, fear, doubt and suffering, and yes, loneliness have made our human journey incredibly challenging. But these difficult times are also a chance to show our spirituality and caring.
Before we end, let’s listen to this story by Father Willy Raymond: One day, a young Hollywood actor dropped into a Holy Cross center, he knocked on the door and asked the old priest to hear his confession. During the course of their conversation, the old priest told the young actor that if he kept his faith life, his career would take him to new heights. The young man nodded and left. Years later, the young man Jim Caviezel who played Jesus in the iconic The Passion of the Christ said that having Father Patrick Peyton hear his confession was the turning point of his life.
It is an amazing story for us to close this post. But if you want great prayer related content like this, join Holy Cross Family Ministries at PrayFest at this link: https://share.familheey.com/page/groups/prayfest At Sacred Spaces like PrayFest, You will discover that it is the New Way to Pray. Amen to that!