The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Why Prison Ministry Is Life Changing (SEEK24 with Mike Gormley – Part 2)

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

This is part 2 of a special episode of The Jeff Cavins Show recorded at the SEEK24 conference. Jeff continues his discussion with Mike “Gomer” Gormely, focusing on their powerful experiences doing prison ministry. They conclude their conversation with some practical advice on how we can make progress in the spiritual life by focusing on one goal at a time. Snippet from the Show The light of Christ shines in the darkest places. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 365, Seek 24 with Mike Gomer Gormley, Part 2. Welcome to the show again. Hope you enjoyed last week talking to Gomer. He has a lot of energy. and what a sense of humor. Again, this week we are going to continue on with our discussion with Gomer, and we're going to talk about issues that are facing young people today

and also some opportunities to reach out and really be that light that shines. He's an interesting combination of theological knowledge, humor, and going out where a few people go to evangelize, and so he's always interesting to listen to. So we're going to continue on with our discussion, I'll see you on the other side of our talk with Mike Gomer Gormley. Shifting gears. How many of you have ever been involved in prison ministry?

I mean, from the outside going in. Yeah. Okay. Not anybody really here. He looks like it. He looks like it. Okay. So I want to introduce you to something that I think will really interest you.

How many of you know the, Was it the MS-13? Yeah, MS-13. MS-13 gangs around the country, deadly gangs, deadly. A lot of these guys are housed in a prison in Houston, Texas, called Ferguson Unit. Ferguson Unit is the end of the line. It is almost 24-hour lock-up solitary in a little cell with a double cage on the door. These were bad men, and the place is packed with them.

I had the opportunity to go there to Ferguson Unit a couple of years ago, and I'm going to be going back again. And when I went there, I would meet with guys one-on-one. They were raised Catholic. They were tattooed to where you could hardly even recognize. And I would talk to them and give them the Eucharist and pray with them through this little hole in the wall. And I found that this was an incredibly satisfying thing as far as my relationship with the Lord to go and actually visit with these guys at Ferguson unit in Houston. Mike Gormley has adopted a prison ministry where he has gone into Ferguson unit. And I want to talk about that.

I want to talk about what you're doing there, opportunities for other people, what types of things are you. you producing for guys who are life-sentenced guys, a lot of them. Yeah, so I got involved. I don't know about y'all, I'd never been to prison. My only experience with that is picking my brother up from the county jail at 2 o'clock in the morning. I don't know where his shoes were. And that was my only experience, right?

And then I got voluntled by our mutual friend Jerry that I needed to go and do this prison ministry. So as a chubby little suburbanite theology major, I tried to back out of it. And he went and told all the guys how scared. I was of them. I don't know if you know that in prison, you don't do that. So then eventually I'd get over it and I'd go. And it was the most incredible retreat. So it was a three-day retreat. Colby Prison Ministries is the name, Retreat Ministries. They put on three-day retreats in prisons. Texas, there's 110 men's units. 110. And there's like seven women's units. So that should

tell you something. But the Ferguson unit, like he said, it's a maximum security, violent offenders, mostly gang-affiliated. And so when we go in there, it was just this experience of just doing this retreat, talking about the gospel, talking about confession, talking about the Rosary,

the Divine Mercy Chapel, and watching people's lives change. Watching, and I tell us to people all the time, I feel bad for you who have never done prison ministry because maybe some of you might doubt or question God's existence. I have seen God work

in instantaneous, miraculous, ways right in front of my eyes. And I feel like to me, I feel like you have to go to these extremes, to these edges of where the darkness is the greatest in order to see the stark contrast of when Christ comes in and is the light of these people's world. So yeah, it's changed my life. So I started doing prison ministry. I've done multiple retreats. COVID shut everything down. And then the prison that I'm at is overpopulated. It's in Texas. It's in the Houston area. No air conditioning. No air conditioning. The windows are broke. So birds fly. in. It's a mess. It is a total human rights mess. And the wardens are trying to change it,

but there's only, there's no money. Because if you're going to vote for public schools or you're going to vote for prisons, what are you going to do the bond for? People are like, oh, they made their bed. They'll deal with it. So we go in there, and my heart is for the corrections officers, the staff that has to run the stuff every bit as much as it is with inmates. So now what I'm doing is I'm writing an apologetics curriculum for the inmates. It's called Inclusion. It's based on my program for bringing Protestants into the Catholic Church for RCAA. And it's to help.

It's a non-combative form of explaining the biblical origins of the Catholic faith and whatnot. And there's another beautiful thing that has taken place at Ferguson Unit at this maximum security. A lot of guys are lifers. And very dangerous. It's a dangerous place to be. If you're out in the population there, get this. For the first time in history, they have okayed bringing giant flat screens

in front of cells on this block and bringing the great adventure Bible study to this maximum security prison. And so, isn't that great? Yeah, it's no joke. It's no joke. And you have multiple lifers just sitting in a, what are they, the three by eight? Yeah, three by eight cells.

Concrete blocks and then a mesh, not just the bars, but then a steel mesh. And the only thing is a gap where they slide the trays of food in, right? And so they never, and this is how they're addressed every day. Tell them how you have to dress. And you know, when you go to those, I mean, the mask, you got to wear a punctureproof best. You got to wear a mask. Yeah, you have to wear a slasher. and then you have wear facial coverings because watch out and uh you go in there and this is one

of my favorite stories a buddy of mine was teaching on the incarnation and the the saving significance of the word becoming flesh so jerry then goes to the administrative segregates it's called ad seg for us cool people and he goes in and he's talking with a guy who was a hitman for one of these one of these gangs and he's so moved by what he heard the night before that he says i'm going to put my pinky through the great. And I'm going to pray the Our Father. Yeah, and he goes, I'm going to pray the Our Father. If you just want to hold my pinky while we pray. Now, think about this. Never is he, are the inmates called by their name? They're never, except unless by a judge. They're never called by their name. They have a prison nickname or they're just called inmate. And we give them their names back.

We call them by their name, right? And then Jerry is holding his pinky, praying the, or the, Jerry has his finger through and he's holding it. And this is a guy who is in there for life has been in solitary confinement for 24 years and is weeping like a child because this is the first time he's had human contact in years. And it's just to hold a man's pinky. And one of the guys said to me,

well, the first thing he said to me was I haven't seen so many white people in one room since I got arrested by the FBI. That was the funniest line in prison ministry I've ever heard. But then afterwards, he's thanking us for this. He's saying this stuff to us, and he said, you gave me my name back. He said, my gang, I gave my whole life to the gang, got arrested at 19 years old. They've never visited me. They've never come. And he goes, and here a bunch of suburban guys from the Woodlands, Texas, are here, and they know me, and they care

about me. And he's like, my own, my gang doesn't even care about me. And so this is the thing is when you find Christ on the peripheries like we're talking about, this is where you see the gospel light up. This is why the, you know, visit them in prison and the sick. Like if you go to a place where the elderly are just forgotten and warehouse, when you walk in, you become the light of their world. Like go to the margins like Pope Francis says, and that's where you'll see faith come alive.

I remember the first time I went there, we were out in the parking lot. We got out of the car. And we were probably eighth of a mile from the front door, and all I could hear was screaming and yelling. And I said, what is that? And Deacon Jerry said, that's life at Ferguson. 24-7.

Four in the morning, screaming, yelling, yelling. Just unbelievable. And to bring Jesus to those people, it's one of the few commands, actually, that the Lord says, when you visited me, or visited the one in prison, you visited me. Now, Mother Teresa had a fabulous way of communicating this. She said that every one of you here today, and I want you to think not only about prison, but think about outside of prison and the people that you meet at college, at work, in the

neighborhood, wherever it might be. She says, she visits Jesus, and Jesus visits. her in the most hideous disguise. How many of you can see Jesus in the most hideous disguise? Anybody? You can see that? That's what's happening here. Yeah.

Yeah. And when you participate in this, you leave. I remember there was about three hours into the retreat. I was so nervous. I was a small group facilitator at a table, and they're all sharing stories. And they don't tell you why they're in there. You've got to earn a level of drugs. And you don't ask.

Yeah, and you do not ask. And you do not Google it. Because if you Google it and find out, because all those records are public records, you walk in the next day, you'll have these glasses on. It'll prevent the way you for doing ministry. So you want to be able to see them as a person as they are, right? Or as they kind of present themselves. But you're in there, and they start telling these epic stories of their horrible lives.

And then this is when it dawned on me. I have had such a lucky life I have so much to be thankful for like this one guy his mother gave him essentially like embalming fluid to smoke when he was nine years old because he was so he was acting out because his dad abandoned him at six

and she had a string of boyfriends who used to like abuse him and he was so like violent and all this stuff that she would just get it's like what hope is there for that guy to live a rich successful life. And the answer is, us with Christ, that's the hope.

And if I can overcome my fear of seeing the hideous and the distressing, and I can encounter Christ beneath that surface, all of a sudden, they have an opportunity to encounter Christ back. Like, it's shocking, but it's the arithmetic of divine grace. Obviously, not everybody is going to go out next week to their local prison and knock on the door and say, I heard a great podcast, I'm here. But... These twin Father Mike lookalikes.

So what would you say to all of our friends about if they're interested at some point in being involved in prison ministry, which I used to be involved with prison ministry with Chuck Colson. Chuck Paulson, prison fellowship. He was Nixon's right-hand hatchet man. And he had a powerful conversion experience and he ended up in a full-time prison ministry. what would you say? My number one advice, if this has moved your heart in any direction, my number one advice is do not do it on your own. Partner with a ministry or organization, go through the training,

because here's the deal. You are full of Christian idealism. You want to see Jesus in his most distressing disguise, all that stuff. Some of them, they are not, they're there to get something out of you, right? And so the way they was taught in our prison training was they are coming at you with their mind and they have 24 hours a day, seven days a week to think about how they're going to do it. You're coming at them with your heart and you just want to love them. And some men, that's all they need and that's what they want. Other guys are going

or other people will take advantage of that. So always partner with a ministry who can keep you in check, who can lay it out where you have mentors, you have people who will be there. I partner with the Colby Prison Retreat Ministries. I encourage you to go look them up. They're awesome. And then, so that's my big thing is if you partner with an organization, what you want to do is feel free to minister, not to think about how to do ministry, right? So let them bring all the curriculum into this and the that. And the other thing is, you know why we have those TVs set up for the Bible timeline? It's because Ascension Press reached out to me and said, we just overhauled all the great adventure stuff and we have a

warehouse full of last version of the books. But we don't want to throw them away. Can you take them and I pointed him to Colby, they took massive shipments of thousands of books, and now every prison in Texas has access to this curriculum. Now, to contrast that, 110 prisons, one Catholic priest, one Catholic deacon, and a handful of lay ministers to serve 110. Anti-Catholicism, people are hemorrhaging from the church. Now the tide is finally turning. Through Colby, hundreds of men, laymen are getting involved, they're bringing their deacons, they're bringing their priests, they're bringing Jeff, we're talking about it, we're getting people to be like, oh yes, it's not just enough to be tough on crime, I got to love these people, wherever Christ

wants me to love them. I remember one time I'll share a quick story with you. I was invited to a maximum security prison. These guys at the prison had gone through the Great Adventure Bible study, the 24-week study. They had gone through it seven times and I got a letter asking if I would come to the prison and talk to them. And I got checked out and I ended up at this prison. And I walked in and I'm standing on a podium and there's about 200 inmates there, some, you know, brothers and I'm noticing as I'm talking to them, there's no doors behind me. They're all back there behind them.

And there's like 200 of them and these were, these are rough characters. Some of them came because they were interested. Some of them came because it was something different. to do. And so I'm teaching them and, hey, guys, I've been with you on videotape for the last, you know, I don't know how many years, any questions. And this guy in the back raises his hand. He is so tatted that I didn't even know, I didn't even know who he was.

He raises his hand and I could tell everybody knew who he was. And he has this swag. And I'd do it, but my swag is a little different. Father Josh Johnson says Give up Jeff, you don't have swag Okay, I said, yes I do Oh, that was awful No, no, no, no, no no

So this guy stands in the back And he looks at me and he says, Yo, Mr. Cathens And I said, yeah He said, I was just wondering There's a whole bunch of us And there's no doors behind you Does that make you scared?

And I'm like, no no i didn't do that you know what i did something came over me i got down off the platform i walked back and i stood right in front of them i looked at him and i said no and you know why and i quoted galatians 220 i said to him i have been crucified with christ it's no longer i who live but christ who lives in me and the life which i now live in the flesh i live by faith in the son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me. You are looking at a dead man. And then I realized what I said. And he's standing there. He's looking at me. And everyone's looking at him to see what he does. And I'm looking at him. And then he says, I like that. And I said, I'm so glad

you do. So very happy you do. That guy turned out to be the leader of the group that was helping these guys understand the Lord. So remember to pray for the people. We are a country of incarcerated people. Yep. It's horrible. What about all the people, Mike, that are incarcerated that happen to be here today? They are in a different prison, perhaps.

They are. I didn't know what you were talking about at first. I was like, oh, we're going to metaphor land. Okay, I'm ready. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we all, this is the thing that these guys say, and this is what I remind them whenever I do this. you might, one aspect of your life is over, but your life is not over.

And here, Christ Jesus can anoint your time in this prison in order to be salt and light to the world in a different way. One of my favorite guys is this delightful redneck where we bonded over video games. He says, every, I asked him, does anyone have any questions? He raised his hand. He became Catholic. He left Wiccanism. He was a neo-pagan.

And he said, how can I be a better father? when I only, a better Catholic and a better father when I only have one hour a week on the phone with my son. And I just began to cry, mostly because I'm a cry baby, I'm very emotional. But I began to cry and I began to look at my kids differently. And I began to look at my life differently. And here's the reality. We can put ourselves into prisons by our actions, by our circumstances, by our behaviors that think that they actually limit us or end aspects of our life. these periods of sufferings or whatever so if sin is imprisoning you know that christ came to set

captives free if your circumstances that you maybe cannot change make you feel trapped then my message to you is that your life is not on pause right let's say maybe the circumstances are you have a terrible diagnosis or something that is causing you pain right the idea is your life is not on pause while you deal with this. You can actually flourish, but flourishing looks different than chapter one. Chapter two is going to be a new chapter for you. And so the Lord can use all of these things for the good, for those who love them. That doesn't necessarily mean God is going to take away all the pain.

He might mean that he's going to deliver something even greater to you in the midst of that, right? Yeah, right. You know, switching topics for a moment. How many of you were at my talk the other day? A number of you, the rest of you? Where were you? No, I'm kidding. I brought up something in that talk that has changed my life.

A couple things. And I want to throw them your way and get your thought on these. We didn't talk about this. But one of them is this. I mentioned, and I found it to be true, nothing becomes dynamic in your life. Nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific. In other words, if you just know all about the faith, but you don't become specific in what

you are doing, you never really become dynamic. And you take marriage, for example, you can say, well, I'm happily married, my goal is to have a happy marriage, I want to have a fruitful, loving marriage, that's what I'm after. Well, in 30 years from now, you'll still be saying that without realizing it or experiencing it because you didn't become specific. You didn't start zeroing in on that area of your life. How many of you know what I'm talking about there is that, yeah, you, I see hands, you're very broad speaking, you know, broadly speaking, you'd love the faith, but yet have not become specific in a certain area. Your thoughts on that, Mike, about becoming specific.

If you look up right now, you can see a bunch of lights, right? Those lights pretty powerful. They can light up a spot. When light is diffused, you can put it in an easy bake oven, doesn't do much. But when light is focused, like a laser, it can cut through steel. The way the devil works in a lot of our lives is through dissipation, through diffusing, through spreading ourselves so thin, through by being focused on everything, we're actually focused on nothing.

And so the number one remedy, I believe for a lot of people, I'm glad you said this, is like, if you want to overcome sin in your life, what's one thing? Give me one thing that you're going to dedicate one year on. It comes from chapter 11, a book two of imitation of Christ. If people would just pick one thing a year to focus their energy on, soon they will be perfect, he said.

He said, but that doesn't happen. People just diffuse. We get all, oh, it's not the thing. that one thing, it's at 40 things. And that's what Satan does. He steals our ability to bring attention and focus that one thing. Lastly, I will say, when it comes to our faith, nothing, you know, we have the sword of the spirit. It has to have a sharp edge somewhere. It could be a broad sword, but some edge has to be sharp, right? Right. And that's that specific focus. So right now in my life, I'm doing a lot of stuff on apologetics. That's not my whole life. I'm not

an apologist. I'm just focusing on this area. But I, there's so much richness there. All the other things are connected to it. But yeah, the Lord, yeah, you move it. I mentioned something else that I've actually talked, I talked about this on the Jeff Kaven show not too long ago, but it bears repeating, and that is this. The word priority.

The word priority comes from this idea, prior, which is first, priority. That word was developed in the 14th century. It was singular, priority. It wasn't until the 19th century that it was plural priorities. And one of the things that stops people from growing in the Lord and really flourishing and becoming fruitful is that they set up 10 priorities in their life. And again, nothing becomes dynamic unless it becomes specific.

You've got 10 priorities. You've got 15 priorities. And at the end of the year, you've realized, I have not given myself to my priorities like I wanted to, and the reason is, is because the most important thing is to have a priority. A priority. When Jesus in John 15 said,

Father, I have told them your name, I have revealed you, I have done everything you told me to do, that was his priority. Jesus didn't have a priority when he was with the disciples, when he was with the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Pharisees, bowling, fishing, walking on water.

He had one priority in his life. How many of you, deep down inside, hunger for a priority that you can just throw your life into to have that one priority? That's a disciple of Jesus. You know, I talked to a, I talked to a, a man who focuses on deliverance, an exorcist. I talked to an exorcist, a very, very good exorcist. And I said to him, I asked the question, does the enemy just want us to go to hell

and stop us from talking about Jesus? And he said, not really. He said his focus is to distract you. His focus is to distract you. Because if he can distract you and not let you focus on Jesus, says as the priority, he has a better chance of winning the final game with you. This idea, Mike, about priority versus priority.

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I do this in my professional life, right? When I travel at Give Talks, I often will do a parish staff retreat. And I'll say, imagine what your work would be like if you deleted all email for a week. Like, no one sent you an email for a week. everyone does this, no matter what environment, they all go, oh, I would get so much work done.

And then you say, well, then what is your job? Your job's not answering email. So then I go off from this email thing. But that's what the, like, priorities is it, like, here's the one thing that comes before, everything else. There's actually 27 of them. And that's where we lose the sharpness of the edge of the sword. So I think about this, exactly what you're saying.

There are so many beautiful spiritualities represented here. Yeah, we're into an auditorium right now with all of Catholicism represented. Catholic Disneyland, right? So I would say to you, and I feel like I have the authority and the anointing of the Holy Spirit to say this. Just kidding, but you should just pick one thing. Like, pick the Bible. You can't go wrong with picking the Bible, especially this one from Ascension Press. It's beautiful.

But pick the Bible and say, this is, my spiritual life is going to be this thing. Because you know what it's like. Well, have you done the litany of trust? What about the litany of humility? Have you signed up for Praymore Novenos? Are you also doing? And there's so much good stuff there that you should, you know, whatever. But what's the priority of your spiritual life?

And I would say every Roman Catholic needs to make, and the Eastern Catholics too, we need to make the priority be knowing Christ in the gospel. If that's the priority, you can do all the other things. But what comes prior is the one thing. And when you do that, you tend to. not make room for Satan and distraction. I think deep down inside, we all want that one priority that we can give ourselves,

totally to give ourselves, you know, first place is Jesus. And if I have to keep track of 15 priorities, it's just too much. Even if I use my iPhone, it's just too much. Right. And I'm not medicated right now, so ADHD, it throws me off. So many things to juggle. You know, again, we're here at Sikh 24 in St. Louis, a beautiful city of St. Louis. We are in Mission Way where all of the ministries are represented with their booths

and all kinds of opportunities. What's your advice, Mike, to our wonderful people here who are wondering, God, what are you calling me to? Are you calling me to the priesthood? Are you calling me to the religious life? Are you calling me to tech? Are you calling me to write a book or start a new ministry? We're here in the heart of it right now. What's your advice for people who are trying to discern what does the future hold? You're a student at Texas A&M right now or you're a student at Colorado or Wisconsin, Minnesota, wherever, and you're asking, how do I proceed?

Yeah. There's a lot of awesomeness, I say, have an attitude that's open to all the cool things you see here. But again, this goes right back to what we said right beforehand. Pick one. So don't have analysis paralysis. like, oh, but this is beautiful, and this spirituality is beautiful. This thing's amazing.

Do it. Go and do it. Taste and see, right? If it makes sense, think about it rationally. Don't jump in without a parachute, but, like, think about it rationally. Can I do this? Can I make a commitment for a year? Can I go see Tommy Nelson's booth over at the Diocese of Green Bay and invest in youth ministry?

Can I go do, you know, pro-life ministry? Is that on my heart? Is this a thing I want to do? And then from that perspective, can I give what they're, asking, right? Think about it rationally. Don't be weird. Think about it rationally. God doesn't want you just throwing your life away, right? But then commit to something, right? Don't be afraid to make a commitment and to pursue that thing. I think a lot of us, there's so much good, we just don't know where to go. Yeah. Hey, I want to thank you for joining me today.

It's been so good to talk to you. We never run out of things to talk about. Right, we do keep going. How can people get in touch with you? I would ask you not to. I'm married with kids and quite frankly you're annoying no uh layevangelist.com a website seen by dozens i have a podcast every needs shall bow uh text eksb at three three seven seven seven hop on that email list um that's that's the principal ways that i like i'm also on twitter at lay evangelist but i never go on there because it's terrifying what about you jeff how can people find you uh well you can find me at ascension press dot com i have the great adventure uh bible study seriously if you're looking for a Bible.

I wrote an article in there on how to read the Bible in chronological order. And we have a great team. Dr. Mary Healy, Dr. Peter Williamson, at Sacred Heart in Detroit, did a phenomenal job.

And Andrew Swofford. Yeah, Dr. Swafford. Dr. Swafford over Atchison. Any Acheson, Benedictine people here? Any Benedictine? Okay, very good. Any Normandale Jr.

College people from Minnesota? What if like 30 people just stood up and they're like, Norman Dale, what's up? The human beings. Now, you can get a hold to me over at, uh, over at, uh, ascensionpress.com. I also do a daily on Hello with Jonathan Rumi, the Daily Reflection. So I want to thank you so much for joining us. And I want to thank you all for spending some time with us. It means a lot. And blessings upon you as you continue on into seek 24. We'll have more information on the show notes on how you can get a hold of Mike and everything else we've been talking about. God bless you. Have a great day. Bye.

Well, that's it. Long discussion with Mike there. And what a great time it was. Again, that was in a big auditorium. It really was. And it was loud and lots of energy. And I think that's one of the reasons that young people do gather at Sikh is because you're not only meeting people that you know, but you're meeting new people, and together there's just such an energy, it's very optimistic. And I'm glad that we had a chance at the Ascension Booth to grab a hold of Gomer and share a little bit about what's happening in his life. We'll put the information for contacting him in the show notes. And again, if you need the show notes, all you got to do is type out my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, and text it to the number 3377. We'll get that for you.

Shall we pray? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I thank you for my brother, Gomer, and I thank you for the work you've called him to and how you've been leading him throughout all these years. I thank you, Lord, for his courage to do things that a lot of people won't do. I pray that that will rub off on those who have been listening over the last two episodes that we would get out of our comfort zone and begin to walk with you in ways we've never done that before. To you be all the glory, Lord, thank you for all of those who came to seek and we just extend a blessing to all of them and pray that that Lord your hand would continue to be on them. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you. Look forward to talking to you next week.