About Michael Grogan. A December 2020 Radio Interview.

To watch the YouTube of this interview, click here to go to Our Work: Interviews and Presentations.

Welcome back, everyone, to the front line with Joe and Joe, Joe Paciullo and Joe Russoniello and once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach. And we are very pleased and very honored today to be joined by Michael Grogan.

Now, for those of you who have watched the show, know the type of interviews we do, a lot of people, God bless them, they're they're very well educated. They have degrees hanging all over their walls. They could speak to about a lot of things. Michael is one of those guys. He's on the show because Michael's a Catholic who's out there and he's getting dirty. He has a ministry that he does to help the absolutely not just lip service, those people who are the poorest among us and not just poor because they don't have any money or because they don't have any food, but people who are very, very who are who are lacking in any sort of guidance and spirituality and closeness to Jesus Christ between the drugs and the violence. And Michael is going to talk about that with us, all of us here today. Very briefly, Michael Grogan has served the poorest of the poor, living amongst them on the streets of the Bronx. He's currently in Philadelphia. He's been doing this for a number of years.

[00:01:14] It's a very important fact to know that Michael is legally blind, OK?

[00:01:19] And he's out there doing this in so many ways. His vision is clearer and broader than than many of us. And so Michael's got an important story to tell. And we welcome you, Michael. Michael Grogan, to the front line with Joe and Joe.

[00:01:34] Thank you. Thank you.

[00:01:35] We're going to start with a prayer, Michael, in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and man, remember the most gracious Virgin Mary. Never was it known that anyone who sought your help or search or intercession was left honored and inspired by this confidence to be flying to you. A virgin, a virgin mother to you. We come before you. We stand sinful. And so our own mother, the word incarnate, decides not of petitions, but in your clemency, hear and answer us. Amen.

[00:02:01] Name of the Father, Son. Holy Spirit. Amen. So, Michael, as Joe said in your bio, you are legally blind. I knew Michael from like 27, working with the Missionaries of Charity. At that time. He was discerning whether he was going to become a priest in their order. And in doing some research for this interview, I learned that your parents were also blind and they raised five children. And during that time, when your mom, I believe, had her second child, your grandparents tried to discourage them from having more children because obviously they were afraid of the difficulties that they would face in raising a large family. Talk a little bit about that story.

[00:02:46] Sure. Both my parents actually met in the Bronx at a school for the blind called Leavelle School for the Blind. It's interesting because it's a public school, but it's run by the Dominican Sisters of Blofeld, which it might as well be public because unfortunately, some of the Dominican sisters are below velt went a little a little bit off. So but my parents both went to that school and I always say they met on a blind date, but, you know, and they ended up getting married and having five of us. So all of us carry that. Same with some of us. It kind of varies and what it is. But basically, it's a congenital cataracts. Some of us have glaucoma. I have glaucoma and different kind of variations that all my brothers and sisters have. So I always say growing up in my household, you never knew who you were going to bump into sometimes quite literally. But we're legally blind, which is obviously totally blind. That's easy for people to understand. Close your eyes. And that's kind of what totally blind is. Legally blind is. I have some vision, so I'm able to read, I'm able to write, I'm able to get around. You wouldn't want me to drive your car, but but there's some level of kind of independence. So that's it's definitely helped us. And, you know, my parents being both legally blind. My father was actually the first legally blind X-ray technician in the United States. And so and he worked three jobs. You put us all through Catholic school.

[00:04:14] That was very important to my parents, that we went to Catholic school, you know, so being being legally blind, you know, as I said, there's a level of autonomy, the level of independence. And thank God we had that. And and my parents really valued Catholic education. My grandmother, after after she had two children, her first one had twenty twenty vision. That's my Uncle Bill. And then she had my mother who was legally blind. And after that she had her tubes tied and that there was no secret she was very kind of open about that. And it really hurt my mother, you know, to hear that, because she would kind of share that.

[00:04:54] And and after my mother had her second child that the first my my older brother, my older sister, both legally blind, my grandmother encouraged. Why don't you why don't you stop having children? It's not it's not right to bring disabled children into the world now. I don't know about what all the people that I've been able to serve and help would have said if I hadn't been here.

[00:05:12] You know what I mean? I thank God. I look back, you know, and say, you know what or what would the world be without my younger brother, Kevin, you know? So it's funny how people think like, oh, if there's a disability, we should know. It's kind of that that culture of death that seeped into the mindset of my grandmother.

[00:05:31] But thank God my mother was a rebel and my mother believed in life, and boy, did she believe in it. And she had done what my grandmother told her not to have. My grandmother was like my mother was like rebellious. She's like what she's going to have. And thank God she had five of us and everybody is doing OK. We got social workers in the family and government employees and crazy missionaries that are in Kensington and all sorts of things.

[00:05:55] Michael, how excuse me, how has how has being legally blind, quite frankly, how has that brought you closer to God and the church?

[00:06:04] Well, it's been great. I got it. I have to tell you, if somebody laid their hands on me and people have tried and tried to pray over me that that my blindness has healed, it is the greatest gift that God has given me. It really, truly is. You know, I remember going to an old spiritual director many years ago and we were talking about driving and he said, you are he said your God preserved you from a lot of moral sense because you don't drive. He said if you would drive it, you know, but that's there's so much more than that, you know, being able to focus exclusively on God, and especially in my work with the poorest of the poor people who feel that a white person coming into the and this is what the experience has been, a white person coming into our neighborhood to save us. And I've experienced that little bit of resentment like, who are you? You're going to come and be the great white savior and the great white.

[00:07:05] They used to say that to me. And then they got there and they said, this guy is disabled, we could get a job before he could get a job, we can get around and do things more easily than he can. And so what I found out is this has been my ticket into the world of the poorest of the poor, because now it's not, you know, the white guy and us, it's it's just us.

[00:07:33] He's here because of his disability, which is really true. I mean, it's not easy for me to get work. And and so it's really been a ticket in. And also it's been a way because in some ways, I think people in the inner city see their circumstances as a disability, just as circumstances of what they've been born into and things like that. And so it's been a ticket in in order in order for me to be able to identify, to be able to have conversations, to be able to communicate. And so it's been a great, great, great blessing. I don't know if my ministry would be half or nearly as fruitful. If I didn't have the disability that I had, I can't drive, I have to get you know, I have to get on the bus and the train just like the people that I work with and that I serve. You know, I get a lot of help from outside people that that donate and that give to my ministry. But I also wait for that check once a month. That comes because I'm disabled, just like they wait for their cheque every month that comes for whatever reason they get their cheque, you know. And so it's really been a ticket in and and a bridge. And so I would not trade it, just like I always tell people that say, well, you know, the gift of healing. I said, yeah, but if you laid your hands on Padre PIO, do you think the Lord would heal him of a stigmata? No, because the stigmata was an incredible gift that true souls to Jesus is the same thing. I see this disability as a gift that brings souls to Jesus.

[00:09:06] Mike, to talk a little bit about, because, as you said, you're now in Kensington, which is a neighborhood of Philadelphia.

[00:09:13] Talk a little bit about your experience in the South Bronx. I know you were there many, many years. Talk about the apartment that you first moved into and one hundred and seventy Fifth Street talk about how you found it, as well as the fruit of you being there in that particular building, which is riddled with violence.

[00:09:32] And basically it's in crime. It's a crime ridden neighborhood. Yeah.

[00:09:38] Yeah. Well, it started I'm going to I'll try to do this in just a couple of minutes, but it started. I work with the missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's sisters, and I was doing catechism and got and I got the kids in in the class there that so they would get kicked out of their regular classes and as punishment they would come to my class was such a blast. I mean, that people were trying to get kicked out of their classes to come down to us because we really we I tried to help them to fall in love with Jesus. And I tried to make it fun. I wanted I wanted the faith to be attractive to them. So we had kids trying to get kicked out of their classes. But you had to be yet to be really bad to get kicked out of the sisters classes. And so I got to know them and over the years stayed in touch with some of those families. And when I finally moved to the Bronx, I started in Pelham Bay, I moved into this apartment. Pelham Bay is not that bad at all. But I moved I moved into this apartment with a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, about three and a half foot statue, a lady on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. And the lady that gave me the statue told me to make a promise. And the promise was that I would have a cynical of prayer to honor our lady once a week.

[00:10:53] And so I moved in, I had the statue, I forgot about the promise, and then one day my roommate, who was kind of like a crazy, devout lover of Jesus and wanted to solve all the problems of the church in the world, and we pray rosaries at two o'clock in the morning and then hang out and, you know, and we were talking about all the garbage on TV and how and anyway, we ended up throwing out our TV and now there's this big gaping hole in the living room. And so we put the blessed mother with that gaping hole was and I remember the promise that I made to have these Marijan Santa Claus. And I remember I said, well, we can get some of the old ladies from Mars that go to the nine o'clock mass every morning they'll come. And that's that's an easy way for me to fulfill my promise. But I got this inspiration. Let's try something a little bit more exciting.

[00:11:36] And I had stayed in touch with some of these families and now some of the young people that I had met when I was 17 and 18 years old in the Patterson Project in the Bronx that was selling drugs. They were involved with gangs. They dropped out of school real like tough guys up to. So we ended up having a and a Rosary Senecal with these guys. We had six of them come the first week. Two of them. I literally just got out of Rikers Island, literally, OK, we picked them up.

[00:12:01] It was like the same day. And now they're coming over and we're going to do a rosary. Now, these guys, they totally forgot everything. I gave them the pamphlets, how to pray the rosary. They couldn't read the pamphlets. It was like a disaster. It was like, OK, this is not something that they're ever going to come back to. At the end, we had pizza that was like a little bit of a saving grace and then that's it. Well, the next week I said, let me just try. And they came again and then again and again. And then they started to bring their friends and birds of a feather flock together. So we got guys who were in gangs and who had dropped out of school and who were selling drugs and who were involved with violence. And they would keep bringing all these people. And and so we started what I called the thug prayer group. You had to be a thug to get it. And I three requirements.

[00:12:50] You had to be in a gang selling drugs and drop out of school. Two out of three will take you one out of three. Go find a regular parish youth group. You're going to you know, and and so they kept coming and we saw miracles happen because we'd go around and pray for intentions. And I remember one boy was praying that his father would get out of jail. Now, I have no idea how God works because probably the rest of the world was praying that his father would stay in jail.

[00:13:14] So I don't know how God balances these things out. But, you know, one week the kid came and he told us by some miraculous circumstance how his father got out of jail and how he reunited with his father. And so all of these things were happening and I realized that the Lord was calling me, I was at the time I was a maintenance guy, a custodian, and not a very good one. I'm legally blind. I mean, how how clean can the bathroom really be honestly honest to God? You know? So I prayed and discerned and said, all right, 40 hours a week cleaning toilets, which is fine for the glory of God of 40 hours a week working with these. And I so I said, Lord, I'll take care of your guys, your children if you take care of me. And I quit my job and I got my first donation that week that that week I was down in the South Bronx. I was talking with somebody and just kind of sharing just what I just shared with you. And the guy leaned across the table and he said, Could you use five thousand dollars? I never asked. I didn't even think to ask. Well, I was I made more money in a week working for the Lord than I did working, you know, eight months for this other organization that I was working for. And so from there, we moved down to Arthur Avenue and I started prayer groups two and three nights a week and same type of thing. We got kids baptized. And then I said, I want to be in the very worst neighborhood I can possibly be in. And I remember saying to the guys at one program, I said, I'm thinking about moving out of here. I want to move in. Same thing. I want to go into the worst day. But they're all fighting.

[00:14:39] Yo, my neighborhood's bad. They're shooting. They're all arguing over whose neighborhoods the worst.

[00:14:45] And so I, I go to this one building on one hundred and seventy Fifth Street and university and I'm sorry it took me such a long about to get there. And I get to this building and the place riddled with drugs and drug dealers hanging out in front of the building. The block was crazy. I mean, it was just wild. Parents out at 3:00 in the morning, drinking and smoking weed, sitting on lawn chairs, eight year old kids riding up and down the block on their bicycles, dropping off drugs between one corner and the other. I mean, it was insane insanity. Police helicopters flying low like that was like shining light on the buildings. I mean, this is what it was like. And and so I get to the building and I talk to the landlord. He says there's no apartments available in this building. He but I got a building that's even worse than this over in Hunts Point. I said, listen, the only reason I want to move into this building is because I know two or three families and I have a shot of survival, you know? But thank you for your offer of a worse building.

[00:15:43] I appreciate it. Well, about two days later, there was a major drug raid in the building that I wanted to move into and three apartments were raided. There were two guys that were selling drugs and guns from three apartments. They would hide. They would hide the drugs in the floors and in the ceiling boards and in the walls and hide the guns. And the cops found it. So I go to the landlord the next day after the raids. And I said, Nick, I said, You remember me? And he smiled. I said, I heard you have some apartments available. And he left. He said, you are good. And and so I moved in on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I don't remember what year it was. And we did the same thing, prayer groups and bringing them to mass. And in less than one year I moved in in June and by April 9th of that year, we had nineteen kids from that building, baptized Catholic, praying the rosary two or three times a week, going to mass on Sundays, going to the sisters to volunteer at the soup kitchen.

[00:16:37] And these were gang members and street kids. And it was so unbelievably beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful years of my life. That particular year the building was. And I remember one time I had a priest come up, he was going to say mass in the apartment. And there were when the priest came, there were cops all in front of the building and the tape and the lines because one of my kids had been stabbed right in front of the building. There was a big trail of blood right outside the building. And this was what this was what it wasn't like. Occasionally this was like day to day insanity, what these people lived through and what they endured. And they were good, beautiful people. But nobody had been there. They knew nothing about the faith, nothing. And so it was so easy.

[00:17:22] They were so desperate to hear about a father, a father who loved them, a father who was not a deadbeat dad, but a perfect father who loved them and wanted them in spite of all of their stuff. Most of it wasn't their fault. A father who loved them and a mother, a mother who was so faithful.

[00:17:44] We had these kids praying the rosary gang members, street kids, and they love the rosary. They loved it.

[00:17:51] It seems that the rosary is a big part of what you do. What else do you do in these neighborhoods outside of the prayer groups? Do you do like outreach with regard to food? Because I know that's a big thing with the sisters in the Bronx. Do you like outside of catechesis? What else is your ministry doing there?

[00:18:10] My my main ministry is to move in to get to know the people in the neighborhood more through Sacramento's and miraculous metals. There is a little bit of an element of food distribution, but I find that there are a lot of other organizations that can do that. Now, I'm going to be doing that here in Kensington, given out to giving out two hundred and fifty meals a week as a means to pull in volunteers, but also to get to know because there's so many drug addicts in the neighborhood. So but primarily what I feel the Lord put me in these neighborhoods for is to not so much to teach about Jesus, but to bring them to Jesus. And what I got in prayer was that was it Ben Franklin that, you know, knew that if he could harness a harness, lightning harnessed electricity, you know, and so he ties the key to the to the kite. I mean, what an insane thing to do. I mean, that's like mental illness on steroids. I'm going to tell you. Right. I'm going to go to the top of the roof and I'm going to wait for the lightning to strike. My house is the place where the lightning strikes and the rosary is the key that they hold up to heaven.

[00:19:20] And we just wait for the Holy Spirit to strike. And we also use a lot of music, praise and worship and and really try to make an encounter and a personal relationship with the father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with our lady, with heaven, real heaven on earth. And so it's it's much more about not even so much about catechesis. I'm not I'm not here to teach them the faith. I am here to bring them to Jesus so that they can have an encounter with him. Why tell them about prayer when I can pray with them? Prayer opens the gate of heaven. I always when I give out the miraculous medal, I just gave it to a drug dealer the other day and I said to him, This is a portal, it's a gate to heaven. I said, when you put this on, you will open up that gate and the power that will come in. I said, You remember this date. You mark this date down on your calendar because this day will be the first day of the rest of your life. If you wear that medal, you have no idea what will hit you. And when I pray, because we have power to bless as Catholics, but it also says in the Bible, we have power to curse.

[00:20:31] And I curse the drugs. I say father in the name of Jesus. I ask that the drugs that are being sold here be rendered completely ineffective. I pray that the money that's used to sell the drugs, to buy the drugs, that anything that they buy and that they use that money for would be broken, that they would experience nothing but hell because they're selling hell and giving health the people in the neighborhood. And so I really and it's funny I did that. I was on a corner near my house and I was just praying that way. Father, I plead the blood of Jesus over this corner. I consecrate this corner to our lady, to the immaculate heart of Mary. I curse the drugs. I curse the flow of money on this corner in the name of Jesus. And I ask you, Father, to send angels to the corner that this corner would belong to God. Would you know there's nobody selling on that corner anymore. Now, that may not work that way with every corner.

[00:21:24] It was just like the Lord saying, keep doing it, keep doing it. So we could go on neighborhoods.

[00:21:30] Go ahead.

[00:21:31] You know, I was going to say I love your approach and this is something that I try to stress. But I think you just said it's so much better than I God is the greatest evangelizer, the blessed sacrament to many people in ministries, even priests, even bishops.

[00:21:49] Because if you ask me and I'm not pointing fingers because I think they're they're well-intentioned. It's pride.

[00:21:56] They think that they could, you know, get out of the way and let God do it. And that's what you're saying. And I think that's such an important thing to stress. Get out of the way. We're just here to get people to look at God like like that's what our lady does, right? Our lady basically says, I'm not the one. That's what John the Baptist said. I'm not the one. That's what the church has to do. And I love the way you articulated that. And I think you're spot on. I just want to make that comment.

[00:22:30] Praise God. I just got to say one more thing. I recently made a sweatshirt and I had it designed. I use Zazzle and I shouldn't give this idea away. I should make it proprietary and try to make some income from it. But anyway, I'm going to give it away. Free idea. I made a T-shirt and it says in huge letters I should have worn it on the show. It says, Need prayer, questionmark. Ask me with a big exclamation point. I want people to come to me because I can give them heaven. I can give them the father, I can give them Jesus. I can give them our lady. I can give them heaven. Not by telling them about it and sending them to a church and giving them a tract.

[00:23:06] Know, I can pray with you right now and we can open up the heavens and they can have a little encounter and sometimes a big encounter with God's grace.

[00:23:16] My God, what are some of your challenges that you've experienced both in the Bronx and now in Philadelphia?

[00:23:21] What are some of your most common challenges that you face?

[00:23:25] Getting robbed. You don't have any money. It doesn't matter, you're white, they see you. They think they think you're loaded.

[00:23:35] Every time they stop me, I'm like, Oh God, you're picking the wrong guy. You picked the wrong guy. I mean, I feel bad for you.

[00:23:41] If you picked me three times, I had to talk my way out of getting robbed. One time was funny. There were these three young men. They stopped me and they and they said, yo, yo. And, you know, I keep walking. I knew it was going to be trouble just by the yo. You could hear the different tones of, yo, what's going to be happening? And they said, Where you going? And I said, where you going? You know, I tried to act tough. I was nervous.

[00:24:04] And they said, we're going wherever you're going. I said, oh, word. I said, well, I'm going to mass and confession and to pray the rosary.

[00:24:11] So you want to come with me? Let's go. So they left. They kind of didn't know what to do with that. And and the kid, one of the kids is your rosary. These are three guys. Nineteen twenty one of them says Rosary, you got a rosary. What you got in your pockets. I said, let me see what I have. Maybe I can give you something. So I tried to take and take the control back. My heart was in my throat racing.

[00:24:31] Ok, but I'm playing come. I didn't have a penny, I didn't have a rosary. I didn't have the miraculous medal. I had nothing. Wrong day. Wrong guy. All I had was my breviary, and then there was a picture of St. Leopold and I had a miraculous medal around my neck and I said, they said, I like your Jesus peace. And I said, that ain't Jesus. It's his mother. I said, You ever heard of her? So we're talking about Mary, a little bit of trying to de-escalate the situation. And then they said then they said, let me check your bag, let me see what you got. And I said, and this is where the rubber hit the road. I said, stop acting like an animal and start acting like a young man. And if I have something, I'll give it to you. Well, at that point, if I didn't get my face knocked in, I knew I was going to be OK. And guess what? I didn't get my face knocked. And I all I had was a prayer card of St. Leopold, who's a captioned saint. And I said, well, here goes.

[00:25:30] I said, this is a prayer card of St. Leopold. Have you ever heard of him? And so they're like, no.

[00:25:36] And I told them that he could read their souls. I said he was a priest and you'd hear confession for hours and he could see right inside your soul. And and so we began to talk and they walked me to the train. And about a week later, I'm walking out of my building on one hundred seventy Fifth and University Avenue, the building you asked about. And as I'm walking out of the building, one of them goes, Yo, Mike was one of the one of the three you remembered my name and everything. He said, where's my rosary? And I so I went over him. I say, What's up to you called himself. His name was Quintel and I and I said I said, where where where are you? Where you coming from? He pointed to the building next door. I said, I live right here. I said, You tried to rob your neighbor. And we both laughed about it. And Bronx humor. Right. You laugh about the person you tried to rob the week before. Since I've been here in Kensington, my we didn't have any heat for a week and it was really bad. And I left and I came back and there were three drug addicts living in the house and all my stuff was gone, everything was stolen, everything I came in, the coffee pot was all they were making coffee. They were about to put an apple pie that I had in the oven. There were three of them. And so this is like but this is the life of a missionary. You know, it's at the time you get a little obviously it set you back. You change the locks, you try to make a judgment adjustment so that that won't happen again. But this is this is to serve.

[00:27:01] The Lord is not is not always easy. You know what? We can tell all the great story when we get on the radio, on TV. We want to tell all the positive stories and the stories where people's lives change. But the bottom line is this is not easy, you know, and the day to day people's lives aren't changing every minute. And there aren't miracle stories every minute. Honest to God, it smells like urine half the time when you walk out into the street, just the other just Christmas night at midnight, two young teenagers right down the block on my block on Emerald Street were shot. One was killed. The police and action news were here. And I gave action news my card and told them what I did. I figured if you want some real action here, here's where it is. And and the bottom line is that the gospel is not always pretty. The cross of Jesus Christ is not always pretty. And yes, sometimes there are amazing success stories we all want and we all want the powerful testimonies. But the bottom line is that the day to day work of serving the poorest of the poor can be discouraging and it can be lonely and it can be heartbreaking.

[00:28:10] And you come in, you cry a lot of tears. I just had to kick a young man out.

[00:28:14] I had a young man living here that I was taking care of and I found two needles and heroin under his bed and I had to ask him to leave. And, you know, and this kid has not been baptized. Nobody wants him. Nobody nobody wants him. He was molested when he was five years old. He was doomed from five years old on from five to eight. He was molested by his brother. And he his life has been destroyed. I knew when he left, I said, this kid, I don't know what's going to happen. I did an emergency baptism because it is an emergency right in this house. I baptized him and anointed him with the oil that I had because he on the church, he's lost. And so it's thankless work at times.

[00:29:03] And I know that when we get on, everybody wants to hear the good and they want to hear these amazing stories, an amazing conversion.

[00:29:09] And there's a couple. There's a handful. But we're out here and we're just giving a little bit of this. Think about the priest, the online every day, the body of Christ, the body of Christ, the body, and how many that one Holy Communion could transform us instantaneously into like saints, pure holy spotless. And we receive Holy Communion and we walk away and we're schleps. Fifteen minutes later, we're out in the parking lot, flipping the middle finger to the guy that's driving too slow. I just see, oh, my God, I'm hardly sorry for having offended. You know, we're schlepping along as Father Benedict Rochelle would say. I was just thinking that, yeah, he's a he's he said if I ever had was his word, lepers, you know, and it's really true. Even as missionaries we're schlepping along, but we're schlepping for the love of God. And I know that I have nothing to give but Jesus because even a sandwich comes and goes, but Jesus remains forever.

[00:30:04] How is your prayer life, the foundation of what you do and that obviously your sacramental life? Because there's no way that you could do what you do without having a disciplined prayer life like how do you go about structuring your day with regard to prayer and receiving the sacraments mass daily confession all the time.

[00:30:25] I'm more than once a week. I drive the priest crazy and prayer is hours and hours a day. I pray many, many rosaries every single day. I spend a lot of time before the Blessed Sacrament. I bring my notebook in. Any inspirations that I get, I write them down. I pray the divine office. Every day, so to be in sync with the church, I love my holy mother, the church, I always say the inmates are running the asylum, but at the end of the day, it's the defectively holy, beautiful, our mama, the church. And so without hours of prayer a day. I could not do what I do, and it's not so much that I'm saying prayers and saying the office and saying the rosary, it's that I have a relationship with Jesus and Mary.

[00:31:17] I have a relationship with the father and I'm getting direction. I'm getting inspiration. I'm getting downloads from heaven. I like to call them at the end of prayer. All of a sudden I'll have all these amazing ideas and I'll be flooded. And sometimes the prayer is dry. Right. We all have that. But I'm constantly getting direction from heaven. And I can only get that when I says lift up your eye to the mountains. From whence shall my health come? My help shall come from the Lord who made heaven and earth. So I'm always looking to the Lord, always going to the Father. I consult the Lord about everything. I always say. We're baptized priests, prophet and king. I very much identify with the role of a prophet and I am a prophet and every baptized Catholic is a prophet. If you don't think you're a prophet, you need to go get catechist. You are a prophet. You are called. That doesn't mean you called to predict the future, although I predict that Trump's going to win this election and love it in the name of Jesus. But we're all called to be prophets. And what does it mean to prophesy? It means to declare over the children of God.

[00:32:20] You know what? I have something that I can tell everybody. I can tell everybody who their father is. And in a world in a generation, whether we call the fatherless generation, I know who every single one of their fathers is. That's who I know. Jesus came Christmas the incarnations, all because Jesus came to bring us to the father. This is all about the father. Make no mistake, men, it's all about the father. And if you don't have a relationship with the father, you may have a relationship with Jesus. You may have a relationship with Our Lady, but it ain't over yet. If you're not in the arms of the father, you've got to come to know, to love, to spend time with, to listen to, to consult, to be in the arms of to rest on the chest of the father. And when you have that, you have gold, your virtual life will become gold and your evangelisation will take off to a level that you've never known. And I want to encourage everyone out there. If you get radical crazy inspirations from the Lord, if you have ideas, if you've had a dream or a vision that God's placed in your heart, you need to stop procrastinating and you need to take the first step.

[00:33:28] Now, during the show, like while you're listening, you need to write something down, make a move, make something happen. Let's stop waiting and blaming our priest and let's stop blaming the church and saying they don't do enough, they don't do enough, or we sit on our lazy butts, let's get up off the couch and let's do something beautiful for God. We need to make moves. We need to bring church outside the walls of the church, into the streets, into the marketplace. We can't wait for our priest and our deacons to do it. You are a priest. You are a prophet. You are a king. You are a man. Go out rosary in hand and bring one soul to Jesus today. Because if you don't if you don't, you will be held accountable. Those who listen to this show, you can't just sit and eat spiritual bonbons all day listening to holy podcast and saying prayers and going to men's meetings and going to prayer groups and then doing nothing. Faith without works is dead. Get off your butts. The souls that need to be saved. Jesus is thirsting for them.

[00:34:28] Michael, let me ask you this. Joe and I say on the show all the time, there's a I guess it's a perception. I don't know how old you are. Joe and I both grew up in the seventies, were both about fifty years old. The old ladies are the only ones who pray the rosary. When you think of the rosary, it's it's the old gray hair ladies or the old Italian ladies in our parish. They they go and they pray together.

[00:34:49] And and Joe and I just just obviously we reject that whole idea, not just rejected, but but as you said, see, there's a lot of evangelizing to do, a ministry to do.

[00:35:02] And what you're doing to those who have no clue, all the people that you're serving now. OK, but we have to talk to people who do have a clue, OK? And you talk about getting off your butt. The first thing you ought to do is you got to pick up the rosary. You got to pray it. It's not for old ladies. Go tell the men at Lepanto, OK, if if the rosary was for old ladies. And the reason why I say that is we have to promote prayer, praying the rosary every day. You mentioned you spend hours praying every day. Fulton Sheen called it what, the hour of power. OK, so I guess that's along with the way of asking you this question.

[00:35:41] Why, what, how and why is the rosary the when the weapon that we need and we specifically use the word weapon.

[00:35:51] The rosary, well, it's tooth, it's so many things, but the rosary is the umbilical cord that keeps us attached to our lady. And you know what? We're all men, but we're all mama's boys. Or we want to be Mama's boys and I want to be attached, you know, and Saint John of the Cross and all the great spiritual writers talk about detachment. I cannot detach from everything. I do not I can't do the whole detachment thing. I like Hershey Kisses.

[00:36:16] I like coke, I like steak. I like all these. I can't detach. I can get attached. I'm good at attachment.

[00:36:24] So I don't work on detachment, I work on attachment. And I want to be attached to Jesus and Mary. And the rosary is the umbilical cord. And when you pray the rosary, you're meditating on the mysteries of the life, the death, the glorious resurrection and ascension of Jesus and Mary. You get the whole mystery, the whole gospel in the rosary. The rosary has such mystical power. Padre PIO, Padre PIO is the saint that he was for one reason and one reason only. And it's not that he prayed the rosary. He prayed many rosaries every day. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the sisters, they pray multiple, multiple rosaries every day. The sisters never are without a rosary in the hand when they're walking through the streets. Mother Teresa, you watch all the great speeches that you gave she'd have in her hand. She'd be fingering the rosary beads. The rosary is the weapon of choice of the saints. I've seen gang members convert because of the rosary and they love the rosary. And, you know, it's funny, when I see youth ministers, they say, well, I do a deck into the rosary with my kids. I do the whole five mysteries with my kids and their gang members, and they can barely read and they can barely talk English properly.

[00:37:31] And they're selling drugs and they love the rosary. So if you want to see changes, you know, we have to raise the bar for our Catholic people. We have to call them to to a new standard. Well, they can't take that much. I mean, they sit and they watch two hours of violence and filth on TV, but they but they can only do a decade of the rosary. Let's let's get real. Let's be honest. And if we want to see major change, if we want to see major change in the church, it's got to start through our own personal recitation of the rosary. And also it needs to start with really rosary campaigns and rosary rallies. I just got this guy donated a four foot image of all the guadaloupe. It's coming. And I'm going to go to the all the different families here, get into their houses and bring our lady for a week and pray the rosary with the families because the rosary changes families. It really does. It's it's the way to heaven.

[00:38:21] I want to just mention before we move on, I found it very Joe and I talked about it on the show.

[00:38:27] We found it very inspirational that that at a political convention, which you don't expect at the RNC, when Sister Deirdre Byrne came out and she and she went on, she supported Trump, you know, obviously his position on life and and defending the church and our rights, which, as you said, let's pray that he makes it or else we're going to have we're going to see persecution. But Sister Deirdre Byrne and she pulled out the rosary, as she called it. What it is, the weapon. We haven't seen that in our lifetimes.

[00:39:04] Ok, a Catholic, not a real Catholic nun. OK, I don't care how people take a real Catholic nun and pulling out the rosary at a major political convention.

[00:39:15] I thought it was the convention ended with the Ave Maria. Yes. Yes. Lady was all over that.

[00:39:20] Let's hope she's all over the rest of the process. Let's pray she's all over the rest of the head of the devil.

[00:39:27] My God, I want to switch gears for a second, I mean, on top of interviewing people like yourself and the show is the front line, we like to talk about things that sometimes aren't discussed in certain sectors of the church, like what you do. You're in the street, you are on the front line. I want to talk about abortion because this is something that Joe and I constantly discuss on the show. We feel that abortion is the greatest evil that is facing not only this country, maybe mankind.

[00:40:01] And I think the thing that people miss who are on, say, the Democratic side of the House who are for abortion and I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just stating reality. They are for abortion to the moment of birth, the Democratic Party. But yet they say they're for the poor. And this is something that Joe and I constantly say. You cannot say you're for the poor and support abortion because a child in the womb is the poorest of the poor one. I want you to I would love for you to comment on that. And second, how can we best combat this evil abortion?

[00:40:41] I mean, we know that so many of these abortionists are actually involved with the occult. They're either witches or Satanists. It's a legal way for them to practice human sacrifice. That's we just know that we know that a lot of these people, unfortunately, in the deep state are also heavily involved with the occult and they are feeding their demons with the flesh of unborn children. And that's a radical statement. But it's a true statement. This is this is human sacrifice, conscious, deliberate, intentional human sacrifice. That's what abortion is in many cases. Now, the women going in may not know it. They have been duped. They have been deceived. And these people are not for the poor. How come the abortion clinics are in neighborhoods like mine? Why aren't they in the the beautiful neighborhoods, the upscale neighborhoods? They're deliberately put there because it is a way to keep the undesirables from procreating, and that is what abortion is.

[00:41:43] Margaret Sanger, we know the history. I'm sure you guys have gone through all this. But these people, they wanted to keep the black and minority populations down and they use contraception and abortion to do it. And my people that I serve have been duped. They have been deceived and they are victims. And then these 16 year old girls that come in and they're having their babies ripped out of their wombs and then the wounds that they carry and the guilt and the shame for the rest of their lives, and they end up on drugs and in the streets and homeless and tortured because they can still hear the cry of that baby that was ripped from their womb by those who are, quote unquote, doctors and there to help them and care for the poor. This is a sick lie straight out of the pits of hell. And make no mistake about it, what's happening in the political arena right now has everything to do with abortion and that they don't want Roe v. Wade overturned.

[00:42:42] As we understand it on the show, you've been listening to the show. Trump's not hated. Trump is not hated for it for any other reason than he was the guy under the Constitution that can nominate judges and those judges will more than likely. Again, it's not enough for us. But let's just say, for argument's sake, as an intermediate step, potentially overturn Roe versus Wade. That's the reason why they staged this coup against him, not because of his trade policies. Maybe he has a little to do with it, not because of taxes. Maybe that has a little to do with it. It's because they represent the culture of death. They want those babies to die. Those like you said, it's not the women. I want to tell you a quick story, and I think it's important. It ties in to what you said. Joe and I have mentioned it on the show about getting off your your your rear end and actually doing something.

[00:43:33] And we can all do better, Michael. So let's let let's let me be clear with Joe and I. We don't we're not judging anybody. But I will tell you this. I've learned because the spirit encouraged me a while ago to get involved, more involved with the with the prayer warriors in New York who pray in front of Planned Parenthood for Saturdays of the month. OK, we go to mass at eight o'clock in the morning and then we we process down praying. The rosary in front of Planned Parenthood now speaks to what you're saying about the difference between those who work in Planned Parenthood, particularly the so-called doctors and the women going in.

[00:44:08] When the women I heard this from people who have been doing this for years, Planned Parenthood's main beef with those prayer warriors who we're standing across the street, they're not in front of the building. They're across their main beef. OK, is that the no show rate for the women coming into it for an abortion is seven? Five percent when they see people just praying their money, yeah, money.

[00:44:33] So you think that let's say for argument's sake, listen, I pray that I've never I think one time when I was there where I actually witnessed a girl who turned around to turn around and did not go in, I have no idea how many women might have turned around because a group of us of one hundred and fifty people were praying on the sidewalk. But my point being is that, like you said, those women are duped.

[00:44:56] But but they're enlightened when they're walking up and they see all these people praying, they must say to themselves, I think maybe I'm doing something wrong. Why would these people be here praying if this was such a beautiful, wonderful thing, you know, going in to kill your baby and they and seventy five percent of the time they don't go in to. It's a beautiful thing. It's one thing. And the reason why I bring it up, we talk about it again on the show all the time is if there's one thing you can do and it's not that difficult, find a group that prays in front of abortion clinics at least a Saturday or two a month and go and pray with them.

[00:45:29] You'll be surprised. You'll be surprised.

[00:45:32] Right. Right there.

[00:45:34] The true let me tell you, the pro-life people that are in front of abortion clinics and Tifa, they get a paycheck from Uncle George. Right. Are pro-life people that are out there in the rain, in the sleet, in the snow, in the cold.

[00:45:49] No paychecks, these little old ladies.

[00:45:53] Put some of us men to shame, and they're out there praying their rosary week after week and sometimes weekdays after weekdays. There are people that are relentless. These are the real heroes and warriors that the real patriots that don't get a check. See, I always say people say if Trump gets in, there'll be a civil war. I said, no, they won't, because then and people won't get their checks if they get killed. So they don't believe enough in the cause to die for it. And the Patriots do. That's why I think we're going to be OK. And we like our Second Amendment.

[00:46:25] No. Like you're living in Philly.

[00:46:29] A lot of us are jumping of the Second Amendment. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. There it is. It all started there in 1776.

[00:46:37] You know, a lot of us, Joe and I live 10 miles west of the city, New York City, that is. Tell the audience a little bit about Kensington, because I mentioned the neighborhood. I actually had a roommate from Kensington when I lived in Hoboken many years ago. He talked about it as a nice place growing up. He was an Irish guy from Philly. How it changed? Talk a little bit because you lived in the Bronx in most of your work, has been in the South Bronx. Talk a little bit about Kensington, what you're facing and and obviously the vision for your ministry there.

[00:47:10] We just moved in here September 15th. The place was a complete disaster, so I moved in while it was still under construction. You kind of finished two, two months later. And then we had a mass here. And some of the sisters, the kids even came for the mass, which was really special that that that just forget it. I was in ecstasy and and this neighborhood now, I moved here because the rents in New York are just so ridiculously high. And I just was not getting enough donations really to be able to sustain even in the worst neighborhoods. And even with the covid-19, I thought the rents would go down. They have not gone down. And so I moved to Kensington because I have a three bedroom house with a two bedroom, one of the first one of the second floor for eleven hundred bucks a month. And it's in pretty decent shape now. The neighborhood I knew Kensington was bad and I knew Kensington was poor. I did not realize how bad it was. I have to tell you guys, it makes the Bronx look pretty darn good. I recently just had two people come from Valley Stream, New York, and they lived in Washington Heights and Harlem, so they'd seen some poverty. And we they came to volunteer here for the day with me and we went out into the streets. And there along the subway station are people, many, many people living in tents. And they're all heroin addicts or heroin users or fentanyl or whatever they can to whatever they can get the drugs. You can walk down the block and within three minutes and I am not even overexaggerating fact. I'm probably under exaggerate within three minutes.

[00:48:47] If you are white and you are walking down that block, you will be offered drugs at least a dozen times in three minutes, not five three.

[00:48:56] And.

[00:48:58] We were walking down the block with these volunteers from Valley Stream and we were going to give out some sandwiches to the people and just pray with them, pray over them and give them rosaries and miraculous medals.

[00:49:10] And as we're praying, the rosary in the street. A lady. On the ground.

[00:49:18] Looks up and she hears us praying the rosary and she starts Hail Mary full of grace, and they looked as she was saying that she was injecting Urbain with heroin.

[00:49:29] These people have never seen anything like this. This smells. You have to just experience it so that Mother Theresa sisters come here once a week.

[00:49:40] And and I have a friend, John McGlinn, he's a volunteer with the John McGlinn I know John.

[00:49:46] He knows what we tell him. Joe Racino. I lost touch with him. He used to come to the house, the embassy house in lower Manhattan to tell him I said hello. He's a real strong guy, big, strong guy. I know him. He works at the Norris townhouse in the city.

[00:50:06] He's amazing. And what a good man. And he he he because he has a lot of. Yes, a lot of construction and stuff like that. So the sisters, they call them from all over the place. He's been all up and down the East Coast. And I said, John, I want to ask you a question. I said, John. You've been to all the houses from Miami to to Boston. I said out of all the neighborhoods that the had is my neighborhood comparison, yours is the worst, he said. When the sisters came to Kensington for the first time, I brought them in the van and they came and they they used to get out of the van and they start giving out meals and, you know, giving out miraculous medals and giving a word of encouragement to the people. The sisters got out of the van and they saw the neighborhood. They were so overwhelmed. He said, I never said I've never seen. They got back in the van and stopped and just prayed the rosary in the chapel just because there were they. And the sister said, this is the new Calcutta. I can try to explain to you and I just told you that on Christmas Day, right down the block on my block, I live on Emerald Street, OK, right down the block from me, two teenagers were shot, one was killed, one survived.

[00:51:20] This is happening every single day here. The drugs are I mean, to walk up and down the streets and walk over needles and syringes that have been used. People walking, falling asleep, standing up on the sidewalk is a common thing to see tents with people that doctors and lawyers that have moved to Kensington because the drugs are so crazy here. I moved to Kensington for one reason. My mission is to young people who are selling the drugs. A lot of people work with the homeless and the drug addicts. I am here for the people who are selling the drug. That's my be because the young men, they're fatherless. They want to make a quick buck. They are uneducated. They can't get a job. They're lost, they're desperate. They're not making a lot of money selling those drugs on the corner. They're not those little corner boys are not making a lot. I work with the young people who are in gangs.

[00:52:21] If you see guys with tattoos on their face, you can send them to Grogan. That's me. OK, I work with guys who have dropped out of school.

[00:52:30] And so these are young people that I work with, I just had a young man living with me, he's 20 years old. I took him from New York. I've been working with him for three years.

[00:52:39] And as I said, he's been through hell and back. He came here and within a week. They got him with the fentanyl and immediately I said, you can't you're going to die here because you've got to go. And I sent them to a detox in New York. And so I'm here to have prayer groups with young people from the streets. Now, I just got here and saw the way that I do that is that starting in January, I'm organizing a network of volunteers.

[00:53:10] Now, these are people from the church will give out two hundred and fifty meals a week to the people along the train station. But as we do, that will also get to know the young. It's a reason for us to get out and I'll start to evangelize and get to know the drug dealers and the young people who are out on the corner trying to make a buck. And as I get to know them each week and we're giving out meals at the door. We're also serving the poor. The volunteers will come back to the house after we make the meals and we'll have prayer groups with them because this is all about prayer. My ministry at the end of the day, is not about giving out food. It's about praying with people. It's about opening them up to heaven. And so the vision is that we would have about a dozen young people who have been in the gangs, have been in the streets, be coming to this house four and five nights a week. Yes, you heard that right. Four and five nights a week for prayer groups to learn how to play an instrument, to learn how to play the guitar, to learn how to play the keyboard, and to teach them how to to lead worship, how to give their testimony and to create a little army of young men who had been in the streets who now have a testimony that they can share so that we can then disciple them, mentor them, so that they can then go back out into the streets. And instead of bringing drugs, bring them a new a new drug, the greatest drug, the greatest high. There's no high like the most high God. Amen, man.

[00:54:32] So to bring them Jesus, to bring them to the father. So that's the goal. So we're starting from scratch here. And there's already been some setbacks. Like I said, we had I, I like the entrepreneurial spirit here. I, I left for a week. I came back and there was a guy renting out two rooms to two other drug addicts. This I like that there's an entrepreneurial spirit. There's some hope here. You know, Shark Tank, here we come. And you know, God is at work. God is at work.

[00:55:00] Michael, let me ask you this before we I know we probably have time for one more question. But real quick, before we get to that question, you mentioned volunteering donations will mention it again before the end of the show. Where do people go to find you to make a donation to connect with you? Because maybe they feel inspired by the Holy Spirit to come down and maybe join you when you're looking for those volunteers after the first of the year. Where where where's the primary place that people can find you?

[00:55:25] So kind of inspired by Mother Teresa's sisters, there's no kind of I can give them a phone number and that's it. So and so the best way to get in touch with me is if you can text first, because otherwise I'll have the phone ringing off the hook and I can always take the calls. But the no to to contact me is nine area code, nine to nine. Four, four, eight. Six one seven two. That's nine two nine four four eight six one seven two, and we'll give that again before the end.

[00:55:58] Oh, how about it? Does email work for you?

[00:56:01] To Michael Grogan, ministry minister, why at Gmail dot com. So Michael Mesi HGL G.R. again, am I NIST or we at Gmail dot com.

[00:56:15] All right. So we got your number, your email address. I'm sure you're going to be getting flooded now, but this is a beautiful thing.

[00:56:22] Praise Jesus, everybody, because a lot of us, a lot of us hesitate. Don't hesitate. We we're starting from scratch. We're really out grassroots. And I have to say, if you're and I and I and I mean this, if you're disappointed with your parish right now and you said, you know, I'm not going to tithe right now, I'm just and you're looking for ministries that are really out there given to the poorest of the poor. I always send people, obviously, to the sisters, but also throw me a bone here at Michael Grogan ministry, we're really out among the poorest of the poor, really living it.

[00:56:55] Michael, obviously you're working that is in a dark place, but you are a light, and St John tells us the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it.

[00:57:06] Sadly, our culture continues to embrace the darkness. We see it year after year. I mean, it's there's things that go on. I can't even believe that are going on that, say, even 10 years ago would be unheard of.

[00:57:22] Is there hope for America? I mean, is there hope for this culture? And how do we basically spark this change?

[00:57:31] I mean, Joe and I, we started the show on the inspiration of Father Lewis. You probably know him from the Bronx. He encouraged us to do the show. We've been doing it for two years now. We've had some success by the grace of God. I mean, we have no radio experience. I mean, we're just two regular guys that try to speak the truth to the truth of the gospel in the culture and the politics. Is there hope? I mean, I'm interested because I think you are an example of hope. How can we change this culture?

[00:58:04] You can change the culture by doing what you guys did. You got an inspiration. Crazy inspiration to guys that have nothing to do with radio to start a radio show. You got an inspiration and you acted on it. And here we are now, two years later. And I would say that if God has placed an inspiration in so maybe there's somebody listening right now that's been thinking about praying about all us Catholics, we love to use the word discern.

[00:58:32] It's such a cop out. Get off your butt and do it. Do it.

[00:58:37] Maybe it's prison ministry, maybe it's pro-life ministry, maybe it's homeless ministry, maybe it's unwed mothers, maybe it's young people. Maybe it's just your neighbors in your neighborhood. Maybe it's a priest ministry. You know, our priests need to be ministered to. They need to be encouraged. They need to be given good spiritual books. They need to be reprove sometimes and lovingly chastised. I think sometimes we let fathers get away with a lot of stuff. Well, and now look at how that escalates, right. Because we don't hold our priest accountable. So maybe with a ministry to a priest.

[00:59:11] But whatever it is that God's placed in your heart, no matter how crazy that little idea, that little spark, that little nudge, that little vision that hasn't gone away, that's still there, that you haven't taken action on another years passed and you haven't done anything. Stop with that. It's time to take action and to do it. We can see all these incredible ministries grow. I also think we're saying we're waiting for the approval of the bishop. We're waiting. I don't have any bishop that approved me. I don't need a bishop to tell me. I can I can pray with people. I can go out into the streets. I can make sandwiches and give them out to the homeless. I don't need a priest blessing. I don't need a bishop's blessing. If I can get one, I'll take it. But I'm not going to wait for one. And I think sometimes we're waiting for our leadership and our leaders have been misled. And that's just the truth. And we just need to get out there. And, you know, like the Nike shirt says, just do it. We need to move on the inspirations of grace. I'm here in Kensington and I never give up. I never give up.

[01:00:09] The place was robbed. And people said, why don't you just call it, you know, why don't you just maybe you should rethink this? I said, are you crazy? That just shows me how much the devil doesn't want me here, how much? Because, you know, there's nothing happening here in Kensington. This people there's a lot of good social work ministries, but nobody's evangelizing. Nobody's going out. Nobody's praying with people. I don't see it. I don't see the presence of the church. And so the Lord put me here now to be an instrument in the streets. And so that's the other thing. I think that we're very quick to get discouraged as Catholics and throw in the towel and say, well, maybe as soon as something goes wrong, we say, well, maybe that's the Holy Spirit. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a cop out. And I think that we really need to step up to the plate and to take action on the inspiration's that the Lord's given us and not tomorrow, but today. Like it like after the show is over. If you have an inspiration or an idea, you need to write it out or make a phone call or go, just even if it's better to start a project and do it imperfectly than try to plan it out perfectly and never get it done. It's time to just get up off our butts and begin to do something beautiful for God, as Mother Teresa would say.

[01:01:21] I think it's so important we want to take it off you. But I do you know, we talk all the time. We all know this. We all know that our politics suck because our culture is rotten. OK, well, how do you change a culture? Well, that's going to take a lot of prayer and individual effort, speaking boldly of being countercultural, OK, and getting out there. It's got to be the same in the church. Like you said, there's plenty to complain about. We did an interview last week with Professor Robert George from Princeton and and Brandon McGinley. OK, and we were talking about this very subject. It's like you don't have to wait for the for the priests and the hierarchy in the church to go out there and actually do something. If you want to maybe make an impact on the hierarchy, start doing it yourself, start organizing, like you said, rosary rallies. Let your lay people grab grab a priest that you do know it's willing to to to to take the monstrance to this through the streets and have him lead you. OK, but don't like you said, look, we can all wait for it for all the like the old saying, for all the lights to be green before we decide to drive the car. But you're not going to get anywhere.

[01:02:29] You're going to get anywhere.

[01:02:32] Father, we're going with you or without you. But we'd love to go with you.

[01:02:35] Exactly. Exactly. We have to keep that in mind. We look at you look at it. I'm guilty of it. So I'm not I'm not pointing a finger at anybody in my life. Joe and I are just tired of sitting around. No, it's like I said, we mention the show, but we're looking for other things, you know, but the here's one thing I would say. It's like getting a job. You know, you need a job, OK? But you're like, I can't really find what I really like. OK, take the job. You might not really like get out into the workforce. Another opportunity. The other opportunities will open up for you as you connect with other people. It's the same with evangelisation or what the Lord wants you to do. Get out there doing the thing you might not think you're supposed to be doing, but start seeing other Catholic start getting into groups with other Catholics. And guess what? Let the Holy Spirit guide you. It might start with. Pro-life ministry, it might end up with prison ministry. But if you're sitting home waiting for the Holy Spirit is already telling you, like you said, Michael, get up, get up and get out there. Don't worry. I'll guide you down the road. But don't wait to just get up and get out there. I think it's such an important message, particularly for Catholic men, particularly for kafala, Lewis told us in the beginning. Our first and foremost audience is Catholic men to start encouraging, encouraging Catholic men to do exactly the things that you're talking about.

[01:03:51] A lot of times people say, well, I don't feel led, so I want to tell every Catholic man, I want you to go to the hardware store. Every man likes going to the hardware store. But I want you to buy a piece of lead and put it in your pocket. And then every time you don't feel led, you can stick your hand in your pocket, you can feel lead and then you can get off the clock.

[01:04:10] All right, Michael, any final thoughts?

[01:04:13] Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. And my final thought really is none of this is possible without prayer. And St Paul's words echo in my soul daily pray without ceasing. And it's to be an uninterrupted union with the Lord. So without prayer, none of this is possible. So I would just encourage everyone to have a real deep prayer life, not just rosaries and prayers from prayer books, but a conversation, a two way conversation. With the Lord getting direction and then taking action, even when we feel afraid and don't be afraid to reach out to me, if you need some help, if you need some advice, if you need some direction, if you need if you're looking for an outlet or an opportunity to serve or a place to give, please reach out to me. Michael Grogan, ministry at Gmail dot com. Or you can always shoot me a text nine two nine four four eight six one seven two.

[01:05:14] Awesome, Michael. Awesome. And we'll definitely we're friends. I mean, I know you know, Joe for for a while, we like to think you're a friend of the show. We'll be having many conversations in twenty twenty one.

[01:05:26] My friend Trump will be president. I'm telling you. Mark my words, everybody. This is it. Get excited. It's going to be great. And guess what? Some of our Supreme Court justices may have to step down after what's happening. And then we're going to get even more pro-life judges. And I'm telling you, the culture of life, the culture of life is about to be lifted up high.

[01:05:46] Get ready. Get excited. Twenty twenty one is going to be an amazing year, I'm telling you. Mark my words.

[01:05:51] Amen, brother. Joe, any final thoughts?

[01:05:53] Just. Thank you, Michael. It was great to basically see you again. It's funny because how we got connected, I saw the mass on Facebook with Father Justin and that's how I we interviewed Father Justin and now we have you. It's wonderful.

[01:06:11] As Joe said, as the year moves forward, we're very interested in your work in Kensington. We'll have the on again. And please give John McGlinn my best. I haven't seen him in a number of years and tell him that he's always welcome here in New Jersey. He'd be a good guest for your show. He's a great guy. I agree.

[01:06:31] We'll definitely reach out to him. That definitely reach out to him. Michael Grogan, Michael Grogan, Michael Kroger Ministries, Michael Grogan, ministry. All right. At Gmail dot com.

[01:06:44] Michael Grogan ministry at Gmail dot com. Shoot him, shoot him an email offer to volunteer. When the time comes, please. By all means, give him some money so that he can keep this ministry going because he's doing the work that we all need to be doing out there. So remember, till the next time. Thank you for joining the front line with Joe and Joe, Joe Paciullo and Joe Russoniello. You can follow us on YouTube and on Facebook at the front line with Joe and Joe. And remember, until we speak again, that our conversation is your conversation and that conversation, it's going on everywhere. We'll talk soon.