When you sing, you pray twice.
Michael Zabrocki knows there’s more to it.
“I arranged everything, used samples of strings, violin, flutes wind,” Zabrocki said. “I had to lay down all of the vocals; some tracks have 36 background vocals.”
He recently released his 7th album titled “Consecration: Hymns And Prayers To The Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“Jesus was a human being,” Zabrocki said. “He walked as a man, he can relate to us so he loved. That’s the important part about the message of the Sacred Heart that we’re supposed to see Christ in each other.”
When Zabrocki’s not at the switchboard in his home recording studio, he’s the music director at Holy Trinity Church in Whitestone.
When churches closed during the pandemic the Brooklyn Visitation Sisters had no way to let the public pray along with their annual 9 day novena to the sacred heart.
Zabrocki and former pastor Father Joseph Gibino stepped in and prerecorded the masses for them.
“It became an all encompassing thing for me,” Zabrocki said. “I learned how to sleep faster to get through those days. The sisters were wonderful about it.”
“Knowing Mike, knowing the sisters and knowing the experience that brought us together was very meaningful for me.”
A new devotion to the Sacred Heart quickly became Zabrocki’s creative muse, and he got to work on consecration.
when the superior of the Visitation Sisters Mother Susan Marie Kaspersyk heard the very first track she was in awe.
“That’s a special prayer to us and to have heard it in music written especially for that consecration prayer,” Mother Marie said. “I said ‘you could sing the consecration now.’”
Timing issues brought on by the loss of Zabrocki’s twin brother and music partner ron delayed the release of the album, but it was no coincidence that it would be heard by the world at the start of the 350th Jubilee of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary.
“It just happened that he has finally completed the album and those kind of things show me its divine providence,” Mother Marie said.
“Divine Providence is what it is a lot of things,” “There was a timing issue with everything with this album and it really became obvious as the product continued.”
The goal of the album is to usher in a new era of devotion to the Sacred Heart, one Father Gibino says is desperately needed.
“In a time of war and civil unrest, the unity of the heart of Jesus is so important,” Father Gibino said. “So right now we need more than ever. We need a sign of hope and healing, and better than the heart of Jesus.”
An Zabrocki wants to set the record straight.
“They’re not hearing Mike Zabrocki,” he said. “It’s not about bringing the attention to you, you have to be John the Baptist and point to Christ.”
he’s not in it for the praise of himself but the worship of him.
You have a chance to see Zabrocki perform songs from his album live.
He will be singing at a prayer service for the start of the Sacred Heart Jubilee celebration on December 27th at 7 p.m. at the Visitation Monastery, located at 89-02 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
You can also buy it on his website MICHAELZABROCKI.COM.