Ep 92 - Father David Michael Moses: A Journey of Faith, Fast Food, and Fervor

You're a big football guy.

I definitely enjoy playing football, yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Definitely keep up with some of the sports, but the big sport in seminary was basketball, which I can play, but it's not like my main sport.

Yeah, fair enough. What's your, what's your main sport?

So I just enjoy playing football a lot, but you don't play that as much as an adult. But in high school I play lacrosse and water polo. So oh, nice Kind of niche sports yeah.

Well, lacrosse. I grew up in California and lacrosse never really took off until I grew up. I played hockey and basketball and football and stuff. Like ice hockey, mostly roller, but I did play ice hockey for a few seasons as well. So Gotcha, okay. Okay, I cabled in that a little bit. So.

Fair enough, nice, awesome Nice, did you plug in my computer. Oh yeah you're fine, I think I'm okay on short, but Sorry, I got it. Did you get the?

question no. No, you're fine. Did you get the questions I sent over earlier?

Yeah, I think my assistant filled them out. Oh, perfect, excellent, Was it was it like a questionnaire for me to fill out, because you said you filled something out?

Oh no, no, no, sorry. The just like a list of questions I was going to ask you just to prep for a little bit.

I hadn't seen them, but I'm sure they're fine.

Yeah.

I appreciate you've seen them over. It's been kind of an insane day. A bunch of stuff popped up in the afternoon.

So Totally fine and not a problem at all. So I lauded about one hour or so. Does that work for you, or do you?

have to yeah Any other time.

Yeah, okay, perfect, all right, should we start?

Let's do it.

All right, hello, all Welcome to another episode of the Manly Catholic. This is James, your host, and with me we have a very special guest. We have Father David Michael Moses. Father, welcome to the Manly Catholic.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be with you guys.

Yes, yes, I am very excited for our conversation, but before we get going diving into a bit of your background, father, do you mind opening in a word of prayer for us?

I would love to let's pray, father, son, holy Spirit, amen, and a gracious God who give you thanks that you are always with us whenever we call upon you, that you guide us, that you live with us, that you dwell among your people. We ask that you bless this time, bless all the listeners. May this be something fruitful for your people and you, father, son, holy Spirit, amen.

Amen, thank you, father. So one question I always ask my guests and this might throw you off, because I sent it earlier. I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but if you could be the patron saint of anything, what would it be and why?

The patron saint of anything. What would it be? Maybe a fried chicken? To be honest, dude, I love. We have Chick-fil-A down here. That just came out of the top of my head. We have Chick-fil-A down here and I love Chick-fil-A with Chick-fil-A sauce. And we have Raising Canes and I love which is a type of like fried chicken strip with Raising Canes sauce, and the fried Chick-fil-A sandwich and the Raising Canes chicken strips with their respective sauces are some of the best foods out there. So at some point I'm going to have to probably for the sake of asceticism and holiness give that up, but at this point it sounds pretty dope to be the patron saint of fried chicken.

So I have to ask. So you're having a craving, so do you go to Chick-fil-A and Raising Canes and you get best of both, or do you just choose one?

No, so I kind of alternate, like they're so complementary. It's like marriage and celibacy. They both compliment each other so well and they teach us about the other one. Like I feel like Chick-fil-A and its sauce and its sandwich is so good some days and really helps me to understand, appreciate Raising Canes more. So the only thing is you have to time it well, because Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, so you have to make sure that if you need it on Sunday, it's Raising Canes, and maybe Saturday or the Monday is when you get Chick-fil-A 100%.

Yeah, I remember I grew up in California and when I moved away out of California I'm in Michigan now they got a Raising Canes in California. So I went back and my mom's like you have to try this twice because I love, you know, occasioned food and the spice and stuff. So, I tried it. I was like this is pretty legit and the fries and with the sauce, like you mentioned, it's hard to beat.

And here's the play you sub the either, the coleslaw, the toast, for extra fries, and then you get an extra sauce, and that's the way to go.

Okay, see you're giving me all these tips. See, that's why I love these conversations.

That was probably more time you wanted to spend on that segment, but okay, that's right. You know I love it.

The patients ate a fried chicken. Then we got to talk about Chick-fil-A and Raising Canes. Let's do it. There we go. So, father David, you are. Do you go by? Father David? Father David Michael, father Moses I know in one of your videos Father Moses just sounds like I'm old, so I prefer not to go. Father Moses, yeah, a lot of a problem with it it just would probably throw people off when they met me.

Now I've always gone by David Michael. Growing up, my mom, my dad, always wanted a son named Michael. But my dad always wanted a son named Michael. But my mom had dated a guy in middle school named Michael and thought that she just named her son Michael. He would hear about it and think that, like she was still in doing so, they always called me David and Michael together, which was already kind of long, but it's kind of stuck for rounds. So I go by Father David Michael.

Fantastic. Well, father, just tell our listeners. I mean, you're well know, obviously, in the social media realm, but for our listeners maybe, who have because I must admit it was my wife actually that said, you have to get this guy on your podcast. You know he has these great videos and we'll talk about. I want to talk about your concerts for life as well, and the Pilgrim Rosary later on too, but just to give our audience a great background. You know what I always love to hear a priest how they came into the calling and the vocation of the priestess. Maybe share a little bit about that background story as well, if you don't mind.

Yeah for sure. So the kind of condensed version is that my parents neither of them were Catholic growing up. They became Catholic after they were married, along with my dad's siblings and their spouses all of them into the church at the same time and a big reason was the church's teachings on life. My parents recognized the Catholic church seemed to have this right when it came to what a life was and what a baby was, and my dad ended up doing a lot of pro-life work after his conversion. This was all sanctioned by the bishop, but he went to jail like 13 times doing pro-life stuff. At one point he was sentenced to six months in jail. Kind of wild stories, again all sanctioned by the bishop. He was doing good work. But I kind of grew up listening to jail stories going to bed Most kids listened to like you know, like stories about you know princesses and princes or something, and we were listening to my dad tell us another story about you being in jail, you know, and I thought that was normal. But I think honestly, for me growing up man, it was kind of like because my dad and my mom because my mom was a huge hearer during that time too and dads in jails. He's got like four kids at home. It was a kind of a backdrop to my discernment, because it was pretty clear to me like, hey, if the Lord asked you to do something, no matter what it is and no matter what you leave behind, like the answer is yes. And so it wasn't really until I went on a silo retreat when I was 16, prior to that I'd been an altar server and stuff and people would say like after math, it's like, oh, you'd be such a cute little priest and stuff. And you know, I always wanted to get married, even from a young age, really wanted to get married, and I honestly thought that I wasn't supposed to be a priest. So it really wasn't until I went on a silo retreat when I was 16. In the silence of that prayer I just really felt the Lord saying like it might be you, it might be you. I'm calling, and I kind of shifted things for me a little bit and I told the priest on the retreat, hey, like I'm kind of feeling drawn to the priesthood, but I was honest, I was like I really like girls though, like I want to get married, like what does that mean? And he said, hey, that's totally normal, that's totally natural. God still might be calling you and you got to take that seriously. And so that really like put things in perspective and I'm like, okay, just because I want to get married doesn't mean that I'm not called the silo Sacrifice can be a part of this and so during that retreat the priest had said, objectively speaking, the most pleasing thing we could do for God was go to mass. And that makes sense to me now being a priest. And what is the Mass? It is the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, which was the most pleasing act of obedience to the Father, complete emptying of the Son out of love and obedience for the Father, for His people. So of course God is pleased by that. And subjectively, not everybody go to Mass every day. But I realized with my schedule I started college when I was really young, I was 14. So with my college schedule I was able to go to Mass every day. So I just scheduled my classes around Mass and just really fell in love with how a priest could help people. And to try the application process for seminary. Kind of the funny part of the story I always tell is, you know, I was kind of feeling nervous halfway through the application. And so I was driving downtown to go meet the vocations director about some of my anxiety and I had read at a certain point to sermon you could ask God for a sign. So I said, okay, god, if you want to go into seminary, send me a dove. Send me a dove. I don't know why I prayed for a dove, it just kind of came to mind. So I was driving down the highway here downtown I was looking at birds but I wasn't really sure if they were doves and I realized, like I don't really know what a dove looks like in the wild, like I should have picked something a little bit more specific, but I didn't think I saw one. So I met with the vocations director and he said I should really feel peace, not anxiety, and told me to start stop discerning seminary and really discern law school. So I was 18 at the time but I was about to graduate from college and had been accepted to some law school. So that's what I was looking at. But over the next months just really was not feeling drawn to law school and really was still feeling a very strong pull to priesthood. And so I was finally praying at a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament exposed at my home parish one night and just really was feeling very frustrated with God. Actually, like God, I want to do what you want, but I don't know what that is Like. Just tell me what it is and I'll do it. And at one point I had said like, hey, god, like if you want to go into seminary, like send me a dove, like crash one through a window or something. And then, right then I looked up and realized that the huge pane of glass window giant above the altar of the church was a huge symbol of a dove. And I was like, okay, I definitely know that that's a dove. And so I entered seminary at that point and lots of ups and downs throughout seminary. The first four or five years I was probably 50, 50 coming back each year but finally spent this is part of the normal program here you spend a year in a parish. It's your fifth year and just fell in love with parish life, just loved being able to serve people, to be with them in all these different moments and just lots and lots of instances where I felt like, hey, this would really be worth giving my life to.

Oh, that's awesome, but I do have a couple of background questions, because you mentioned a couple of things there. Did you say you started college at 14 and then discern law school at 18? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's just kind of how it worked out.

So the kind of the hack there is. I was homeschooled starting out and in eighth grade my mom was like hey, how about you start taking some dual credit classes at the junior college? Dual credits like the college class. You can take it as a high schooler for credit for both, and usually people take like two or one or two classes they're junior and senior year each semester and my mom just figured out I could take like a full load of classes. So as a 14 year old I was just taking 15 hours college credit and we just did that for two years. Then I transferred to university and they thought I was a transfer student and then I did two more years and then I was 18, I had my bachelor's degree in free law and it was it's funny, cause it was never the plan at all. It's just how it worked out. I don't know why more people don't do that, so at that point.

I'm not 18.

So it was like I wasn't gonna just graduating, go into like the workforce, so I was looking at seminary or law school at the time.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, god bless that spiritual director, first of all, who was like it's okay that you like girls, like that's totally normal type of thing, but no, it's funny. I am, you know, father Dom, who I do a lot of episodes with too. He, that was one of his big hangups too, cause he became a priest later on in life, but I think it was and he shared this publicly, so he won't mind me sharing it but I think it was at least once, maybe twice, where he was actually engaged and he said I don't know what it was, but like I just and I'm not like I'm a very decisive person most of the time, but they're both instances like we couldn't set a date and we just couldn't move forward with the marriage, and then he talked to his spiritual director about it and he said his spiritual director said have you like strongly considered the priesthood? And Father Dom was always like, oh no, like that's not, like I, like I'm engaged, like what are you talking?

about man Like you're crazy, you know.

But then he thought about it and I think I think another thing too is he started going to Daily Mass. He's like, okay, you know, this is starting to, the idea is starting to warm up to me and everything. But yeah, I mean celibacy, I mean that's a good way to transition too. I mean, maybe describe celibacy, cause I think celibacy has such a a incorrect connotation in our society today and it's like you know, it's like other men who you know, it's especially in the way our culture is with you know, the sexual revolution. That's all we should be doing is having sex with everybody that that walks by the street type of thing. That's kind of the way our culture, sadly, is interpreting sex. So maybe expand on that and the beauty of celibacy and why it is so important. It can also be so fulfilling for a priest such as yourself.

Yeah, so you make a good point. Like our culture is kind of completely off and has a very perverted kind of view of sexuality and what's interesting is the church, you know, is not saying through celibacy, like, oh, any kind of sexual stuff is bad. You don't become a priest cause marriage is bad. You're not celibate because sex is bad. You actually be true celibacy because they're so good. Like the value of a sacrifice usually is connected with the value of what you're giving up to sacrifice. Something you don't want anyways is not very valuable and like Jesus has pretty clearly like celibacy. Some choose to become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. Like your celibacy should point people to the kingdom of God. Like I wanted to get married. The idea of having a woman to share your life with and having kids sounded awesome. So the fact that I would give that up should make people look at my life and say like why would this 29 year old guy not be married? Like if he was living for this world, this makes no sense. He must be living for another world, which I completely am. Like that's what I think celibacy for the kingdom means. Like it points people who are confused by this material world towards something much greater and something beyond all of this, and you offer yourself as a sign for other people of the deeper spiritual reality of union with God. Again, not because marriage is bad, so it's really beautiful, because celibacy obviously is supposed to be a spiritual union with God and what is heavenly is obviously greater than what's earthly. You know, earthly marriages end at death, but the celibate's union with God should endure forever. So there's a greatness there. Obviously, people are called subjectively to different things, but there's a level of greatness there that in the end is a real honor to be called to that. Actually, priesthood ultimately is like an invitation to love God's people the way Jesus loved God's people, because Jesus himself was celibate and he loved deeply. Like celibacy is not a call to life without love, it's a call to love like Christ's love, and that's the marriage, is an image of Christ's love. Right, it's not Christ loving itself. It certainly can be that and should show that there's a need for that. So I mean I'll just share. Like, for me, you start off being like gosh, I don't wanna have to be a priest, I don't wanna have to be celibate, I don't wanna have to, you know, lose my freedom and have to go with, the bishop says but then you realize what it is, which is a deep union with Jesus Christ to confect the Eucharist, to forgive sins in his person, to love how he loved. And you go from saying like I should hope I don't have to be a priest to saying, oh my gosh, like I sure hope he chooses me, like I sure hope he chooses me to be part of his work here on earth. So all that to say, I think the we were just doing through theology, the body with our young adults here, and marriage teaches celibates what that sows the union looks like on a very concrete way, like what you should have with God, but celibates teach the married people what that union is all about, like this should be about getting you guys to heaven. So they really work, just like Chick-fil-A and raising canes. They just work together so well in a really beautiful, beautiful way but super contrary to our culture as it should be.

Well, yeah, I mean, gosh, that's such a powerful witness too, Father. I mean you said I mean nothing we do on this earth, well, not the greatest things. I guess. To say it a different way, the greatest things we do on this earth are they have to require sacrifice, otherwise it wouldn't really be worth the living at all. I mean same thing. You, you called your priest and me being called to a husband and a father. I mean that requires sacrifice on my time as well. When you called for marriage. You're saying I'm going to lay down my life for this woman, and you know my time now is not my own, especially when you have children. My goodness, you have, you know, five minutes a day of free time Same. thing being yeah, if that you know, and being a priest, you have five minutes a day for yourself, if that, too, some days, you know, and it's. I mean this, this is such a beautiful thing that we are both called to, but it's, it's pretty dang hard most days, you know, and it's there's. No, it's okay to say that out loud because, again, that's how we grow. I mean, that is our path to heaven. Right as you laying down your life for for the bride of Christ, me laying down my wife, my life for my wife and my children, and obviously for God as well. But it's, you know, it, it's gosh, there's just so much that to unpack there as well. But I love how you, you know, you say that about the sacrifice, you know, and you know it's not really, when you think about it, it's not really a sacrifice where we're giving something else. Because we're giving up, we're getting something more, so much more, from God, but by giving ourselves up to him as well. So so you, you've been a priest for is it four years now?

Five years, yeah just a little bit over four years yeah.

A little over four years. Okay, Um, could you start during the pandemic right? Lovely COVID.

It was right before. So maybe six months before the pandemic I got ordained and it was an awesome six months love being a priest and then boom, like the pandemic hit and like things changed a lot. But it was funny. I had a lot of people saying like I'm so sorry, this is like part of your first year as a priest and I would kind of tell them like actually, like this is why I became a priest, because this world is super fragile and like people need to be pointed back toward what is lasting, and I think the pandemic was a real reminder of that. So, I think it all worked out for the good.

Absolutely yeah. So what for you, father? What has been the most surprising thing I mean it can be positive or negative that you have noticed? So obviously you have. We have your ideas of going into the priesthood. You know what you learned in seminary and things like that. This is what's going to happen. Obviously, covid hit, so that changed some things. But what has surprised you the most in your four years of being a priest?

I think what honestly has surprised me is how much I actually like gel with this lifestyle for lack of a better term Like it is very, very it's exciting. There's all kinds of different things that happen every day. Every day is like super, super different and I enjoy a lot of what I do like whether it's like confessions with people, whether it's saying mass prepping homilies, stopping by the preschool over here to say hi to little kiddos, you know. Staff meetings, kind of game planning for what the next year is going to look like. You know all this stuff makes for like a very fulfilling life. And the only reason I like it is for, like the reason you just said, this sacrifice is pretty life-giving. Like I am constantly being pulled out of myself, whether that's to go to an emergency or an annoying thing that I had not planned in my schedule for, or like to be pulled into a funeral in two days that I didn't know was coming, but the person just died and we got to do it. You're constantly being pulled out of yourself in a way that, granted, like sometimes it's kind of frustrating and you have to constantly like die to self to give God your schedule, but ultimately, at the end of the day, when you go to bed, you're like, dang, I think we did some good stuff for the world. You know, from the time we woke up, the time we went to bed, we were bringing people to Jesus and I'm surprised how like fulfilled I am in that, because I mean it's like marriage right, like you don't really know what it is till you're in it. You make the promises and then you're in it. You don't get to test it all out and then decide if you want to do it, which is the beauty of the faith of it right, but you commit to this woman and you're going to continue to discover who she is along the way. And I committed to this church not even knowing what parish I was going to be sent to, and you kind of discovered along the way. So I was definitely hopeful for what priesthood would be but honestly, it's been way better than I would have imagined. And again, better doesn't mean easy. Better means like fulfilling in terms of like yeah, like this is worth giving your life to.

Yeah, I mean gosh, there's so many parallels what you're talking about between the priesthood and marriage as well, and you know the expectations too. You go in, you know you go through the honeymoon phase, obviously too after you're married, and then it drops down real quickly and you're like, oh okay, we're doing life now. And it's not quite as exciting as I was picturing, and you know all this. You know lovey-dovey stuff. It's like no, like this is, and it's beautiful. Like you said, it's unexpected, it's surprising, but it's the life that we show that God chose us for and the life worth living, you know, and neither of us would trade places with anyone in the world, because this is what God has called us to. First, to set the purpose, you know, and you mentioned, you know, confession and I watched one of your videos and 65 hours during Holy Week of Confession. Did I get that right? Was that one of your videos? Was that last year?

Yeah, yeah, so both the last two years it's been about that long. Yeah, I just like explain that a little bit. You know, I just realized like people tend to want to go to confession right before Christmas or right before Easter, and we obviously want people to go into confession like once a month, once every two months would be better. But for whatever reason, I think it does make sense that as we kind of prepare for the passion and death of Jesus Christ during Holy Week, people are kind of feeling drawn to that, with some compunction and some contrition, to change their lives before Easter. And so for me it's like in any other sector when the customer, so to speak, wants something, you double the supply. So like right before Christmas, like they Apple make sure is they've got plenty of iPhones right before Christmas target, make sure they open up all their lanes to get as many customers through as possible. I just think it makes sense as a church, like if this is when people want to confess their sin which is what we're trying to convince them to do all year is to go to sacraments then like let's just really pump out tons of supply to meet this demand. And so I pitch it to my pastor. I was like yo, like what do you think about Holy Week, me just being in a confessional like all day, most of the days? And I was kind of surprised, like to be honest with you, a small part of me hoped you'd be like that's too much and I'm like, okay, I'm off the hook. But instead he was like yeah, go for it. And I was like, oh, okay.

Can I revert what I just said? I didn't mean that many hours Exactly.

But I'm also the type of dude that, like, once you commit, it's like, well, I'm going to commit, like I'm going to do it. You know what I mean. So I honestly thought it would be like I'd be in the office working in like every hour. Somebody would come in and like call the office and be like, hey, can I come in for confession? I saw that he's free for confession. I'd be like, yeah, come in. That's what I thought, and we'd have like a trickle. And instead I pulled in the first day and there were like three cars in the parking lot and it was like, oh, okay. And I mean there were definitely a few breaks early in the week, a couple of short ones, especially towards the end of the week. I mean we were just pumping them out to the point where, like good Friday was wild. We had three pre-series and confessions. I, a couple of us, went like 18 hours almost straight, oh wow. And I think I heard 400 confessions that day, which people sometimes are like why are you hearing so many confessions? Dude, I wasn't, like I was trying to pad the numbers, I didn't want to go fast. It's exhausting when confessions go quickly because some of them are going like one minute. The problem was people were waiting for two hours and we're walking in the door and we're leaving because of how long the line was and for me, like when God is tugging at a heart, I don't want them to leave without confession. They may not come back. So I mean I made the decision to like we can either go really slow, like three or four minutes of confession and all of us we won't go to confession, or we can just really ask the people to be very efficient so we can be doing what we can to make this go more quickly to make sure everybody gets the primary end of confession, which is forgiveness. And so, yeah, I heard like 400 confessions that day. It was like over a thousand for the week. It was kind of insane, but just like super, super beautiful. I mean this is like. This is why you come. A priest you know like, to be able to stand there between heaven and earth and reconcile people to God, is just insane.

That's awesome. I props to you and God bless you for doing that. I mean confession. I mean I grew up Protestant and I was telling Father Dom when I I did my first confession and first like several confessions I probably the first year where I started in confession I always just had like this pit in my stomach where it was just like something you did not want to do. And I actually talked with, I did interview with Father Lampert and he said I always tell, I always tell people, especially young people in the go to confession. It's kind of like your. It's kind of like when you throw up, you know so you have your super nauseous and stuff, but then you get it all out and then you feel so much better.

That's what confession is. I go.

That's a perfect analogy because that's what I felt like, and then because we know we need it but we don't want to do it, and it's always the hardest things in life that helps us grow. And so I guess just having priests like you, you know and I know Father Dom speaks so highly of confession as well let's dive into that a little bit too, because clearly you have a love for that sacrament in particular. So what is it about that sacrament and you kind of mentioned it a little bit, but I want you maybe to expand on it what about confession? Is it because you said it's enjoyable for you as a priest, actually? So what about it is enjoyable for you and why is it so important for us?

Yeah Well, you know the importance for me what I've just seen as a priest. We have, at least in Houston. We have a lot of people come into mass, like we've. I've been at masses here where we had 3000 people at mass and and so we've a lot of people come into mass, which is awesome. But I think there aren't as many people statistically coming to confession proportionally, which means like something is missing in their spiritual lives If they're coming to receive the Eucharist but we're not taking care of this sin. So for me when I see like a big opportunity, you know, a kind of an abundant harvest there, you kind of want to lean into that. So the Eucharist is so closely tied with confession, I think, because one gets rid of what's between you and Christ and then one honestly is intimacy with Christ. So of course we need to go to confession for non-state of grace to kind of receive that, that union. But the one of the reasons I enjoy it I mean you certainly get tired and stuff, but I enjoy it because there are so many things in this world that you can't fix. People come in with really difficult marriages and we can pray through it, we can work, but like I can't fix it right there. People come in. They have a hard time with their parents. So many difficult things. I'll walk with you through it, we'll pray about it. We have some tips and some tricks that we can work through, but I really can't fix a relationship with your parents. People come in like they can't find a job, like I can't necessarily fix you not having a job, but if you walk in the confessional with sin, I can fix it Like I can in the person of Jesus Christ not me but him. But through me I can fix the sin, like it can go away. And so confession, every confession they walk in, it's just like we're about to win this one and the next person comes in. We're about to win this one too, and the next person. We're winning all of them today, Like we can, if you're sorry for your sin and you come and confess it, like Jesus is going to win every single time, like it's just win after win, after win after win, and so many things bad in the world, so many things broken, but you can walk out of that confessional with everything in here, just as it should be, and I just think it's such a gift it is. Yeah, it's nauseating. It makes you nervous. I get my palms get sweaty when I go to confession too but you walk out of there, hopefully, with peace, which then peace is everything being as it should be Right. You walk out of there Again. Your family can be bad, your marriage can be crazy, your finances might be in the dumps, but you can walk out of there and the most important things are taken care of, which is like your relationship with God. So that's, I mean, that's why I love it.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's. I mean it is truly a gift. I mean it's like it's like God knew. It's like he knows us better than we know ourselves or something.

He's just. He knows exactly what we need.

I don't know it's like he made us or something, I don't know he made that human nature. So I do want to transition a little bit because you you have quite the, the social media presence, which is awesome because you do like a day in the life of a priest and things like, and you did the. You guys had the drive through nativity scene during COVID and you guys did an awesome video on that. You have your conversion story. So tell me how, how that all the social media stuff, because I I doubt you became a priest. You know what I'm going to be the guy that's on social media. I'm going to be that priest type of thing. Well, just tell me, because I know there's obviously the flip side of it where I'm sure you've gotten criticism from people who's like, oh, you need to spend more time, you know, in your spiritual life and stuff. I mean, there's always going to be naysayers no matter what you do, cause everything you're posting is positive and it's all about Jesus, but there's always some people are like, well, you should stop this, so. So I guess tell me how that's kind of developed and what is sort of your mission or your drive when you post videos and things like that.

Yeah. So for me I would say I mean, god kind of works things out. He sets things up the way he wants. When I was in high school I started making a lot of videos for, like, my youth group, things like that, for retreats and stuff. And then I got a. One of my projects in college was to like fake apply for a job and I found one and then I just like it was for a videographer in art gallery at the school and then I just actually applied for it and just kind of to be funny, and then I got the job and so I started doing videography for this art gallery and when I was in college and so kind of got better video stuff. And then I called the director of the seminar when I was leaving and I said, hey, I've got some video equipment, I do some video work. Like, would you want me to bring that or should I just kind of leave that here? And I really didn't care and he was like nah, dude, we'll use it. Like like, bring it. And I kind of learned in that moment I was like, oh, interesting, like maybe God doesn't want you to like completely forget who you are when you come to follow him. Maybe he kind of wants to use what he gave you for the kingdom. And so I started making videos for the seminary, for some of their fundraisers and our benefits. And then we did like I mean, this is part of a lot of colleges and stuff, but each at the end of the year you do like this roast video of everybody and it's super funny, you know. So I started making videos for that stuff every year and then all throughout seminary I had so many times, man, when I was like gosh, this is so fun, like these moments are so cool with these guys who all want to be saints and want to be holy and are just super cool dudes. I wish like somebody was filming right now, because it would be so good for young, like 17, 18 year old guys to see what this is actually like. But at seminary it's kind of private guys are nervous, the formators don't really want you filming stuff necessarily. So I didn't really do a lot of that in seminary. But then when I got ordained, the same feeling hit. Like two, three or four months into priesthood I was like gosh, this is so beautiful. I wish somebody had shown me this. I wish somebody was like filming right now. And then, finally, there was one day about four months in. It was one Friday evening and the next day I had I was baptizing quintuplets, which I knew was just probably never going to happen again in my priesthood. It was absurd. Then we had like a wedding, I had confessions, I had a young adult thing and I was like tomorrow's gonna be a fun day and I was like you know what? I'm just going to film it. I'm just going to film in between saying stuff, whatever, and so I just kind of I didn't really have any expectations, I just wanted to show what the day was and I filmed it and edited it down to about four and a half minutes and I watched it and I remember thinking like gosh, this, this is capturing what I felt in that day in about four and a half minutes Like this is capturing those feelings and so I just posted it on just I think it was Facebook and YouTube and just lots of very positive responses from people. And you know we've got a lot of views but also just comments from people saying like, oh, this is so cool to know. I'm going to send this to my son. He's thinking about being a priest, all that kind of stuff, and so that's how kind of how I got started. I honestly that first, like year, year and a half, I didn't post very much just cause I was busy. I mean, being a priest is busy, so I'd post a video like every month and a half. Maybe now we're disciplined with it, because for me right now, like I mean, jesus literally commands go out to all the nations making them disciples. And I think, because we're so busy as priests, it's not a reason not to do social media. It is exactly the reason to use social media because your energy is so limited. I can only preach a homily in front of so many people physically, but you can record that homily and post it online and it will keep preaching itself with no more energy. Your time on your part to as many, it literally limitless number of people. And it's like when that's when that tool is just handed to you, why would you not use that? I mean, if we are trying to unashamedly influence the culture with good values, so like let's influence the culture as much as possible toward Christ, so I mean, I do think it kind of is just part of what I feel called to. I wouldn't tell every priest he needs to do that, but and it frankly, time wise it's a small part of what I'm doing in terms of parish ministry, but I do think it can be a good tool in terms of the salvation of souls, which is what we're all about.

You mean you're not spending half a day on Instagram? Father.

I hope not.

That would make me the perfect, the perfect filter for your video. That's not what you care about.

No, that would make me go kind of psycho I think, in fact, I'll just say the suit, go ahead.

No, I was going to say I think I think there's a lot of people who would say the same thing and we can see, you know the mental health and everything too, with social media as well, because I mean there's there's always the bad side of to anything. I mean, just like social media is a tool, right, it's, it's strictly to, unlike you said, I mean there's so many like I want to be having this, this conversation with you. You know, I probably never heard of you because you know you're down in Texas, I'm in, I'm in Michigan, but here we are having a great conversation and it's because of social media. And you know, I think some people, they kind of go the opposite way. It's like all social media is bad. I'm like, yes, it can obviously be bad and yes, it can be used for evil, but it also can be used for good. And I think I think I heard you is either homily or an interview you were doing and you said you know we are, yes, you, social media can be bad, but God is also calling us to to evangelize in social media because there's tons, there's millions and billions of people using these platforms and these tools and, if all, because the opposite is there too right, like the devil and the diabolical. All these negative things are there. So why not be the voice of truth, the voice of light, to evangelize to people out there, because that might be, that might be what you post or what you say, might be the only true thing that they hear that day, and it might be what they need to turn their life around, because you just don't know. So just go ahead.

No, yeah, I just totally agree with that exactly. I mean, I would not tell somebody if you don't use Instagram, go get on Instagram so you can watch my videos. I would be like no, stay off of Instagram. Like it's not social media. The studies are pretty clear. Like it doesn't make you happy, like I would tell people to get off of it I do tell people to get off of it, but telling a bunch people get off of it If I'm the pulpit is not reaching the law sheet on social media and I don't believe it's an idea like to your point. I don't think it's inherently evil. So I think it can be used as a tool for good. And if we are trying to go out, like if you're not using social media, like what else is your parish or your priest doing to go out, like I mean I think we could also be going to restaurants and things like that as well, but social media is a very low energy, high output way of doing that. So I think it's not necessarily for everybody, but it is worth taking a look at and I definitely a lot of positive cases.

Good, yeah, 100%. So you do have two, two big projects that I've seen on your website. So you have the, the pilgrim rosary, and then the concert. Is it concerts for life or concert for life?

Concert for life.

Yeah, yeah, concert live, perfect. So tell, tell our audience about that, because I was watching some videos and I mean clearly it's getting a great turnout. You guys are raising a ton of monies for all the, the pregnancy centers down there in Houston. So tell, tell us a little bit about the, the concert for life.

Yeah, I mentioned at the beginning my, my dad, a lot of pro life before I was born and he's on the board at a pregnancy center Downtown here. Helps a lot of women. You know people coming in, women coming in in crisis pregnancies and scared and alone. It gives them a lot of support In various ways. Really beautiful, beautiful ministry. And they were looking for kind of a different fundraiser to do. They usually do a dinner but he was like hey, how about we want to try something else? Why don't you do? You've been writing songs, playing music, why? don't you do like a benefit concert for the center. That's okay, cool. So we don't really know what to expect. We just had it when I was 18. I wrote all the music for it, played a bunch of different instruments. We had about 300 people come and raised like like $70,000 that first year. So we were like super, super thrilled. But I again come with the video thing. I went up to seminar I was like, oh, that's been fun. Bye, I guess we're done with that. But there was kind of a need the next summer with the center. So we did it again and it's been cool because I met guys in seminar who play music and stuff and so I kind of started inviting them to come. Things kind of kept growing. So we just did our tenth one. I think it was the tenth annual one that we did and it was all priests, six priests from other country. I still wrote all the music. I hope that quality the music's increased over the years too. Um, but we get, you know, thousand of people out there and we raised about a hundred forty five thousand dollars this year and it's hard to even describe it because it's such a unique thing to have, like sure, and it's not just like a Priest talents show or something like. These dudes are really good at playing their instruments, like they're really good musicians and it's really cool how God has kind of brought it together. So we raise a lot of money for the center, which is what it's about, but it's also a time to be encouraged. Okay, you're not the only pro-life person in the city, you know, there's a lot of other people here too. And then this wasn't the plan, but it's kind of turned into kind of a vocations event too, because you got six priests on stage and the collars playing music. It's like if you're a young guy, I don't know if you can leave there and not think a little bit about priesthood. So I don't spend that much time playing music throughout the year, but for a couple weeks at the end of summer. I try to work really hard to make that a really fun show.

So you should come out sometime. Yes, what? What is it? Typically Do you guys do it same time every year?

Usually toward the end of the summer, usually toward the end of July, sometimes early August. Just kind of depends on schedules and stuff.

So that would be awesome. So, end of July, and yeah, I'll be sure next year I'll be watching your social media and I'll help promote it and post stuff and everything, but I'd love to go. That sounds amazing, so, and it's okay. So then the next one is the, the pilgrim rosary, which I think is. I watched the video and I think it's an incredible idea. So tell our audience about that as well. I think that's just a phenomenal thing you had got going on there.

Yeah, I appreciate that I've been super pumped with how it's come together, basically connected with the confession thing. Earlier during that first holy week, there were some ladies at the parish who were really Moving toward religious life and so doing that week when I was here in Confessions, they were just praying a ton that week for the people coming and for me it was just really beautiful. And so they bought a couple hundred of these like kind of inexpensive wooden rosaries, you know, and they were Praying on them and they were giving them to penitents after they went to confession and they would say, hey, I just pray to rose here on this for you, you can, you can pray on it now. And I mentioned that to a buddy of mine who's a priest and he had said, hey, you know, like that would be cool to kind of keep that going. And then I thought like, yeah, what if we put a QR code on the rosary and then they could log it? They could basically scan it and Say who they are and where they pray the rosary, at when they prayed it, and they could pass on to that person and they could do the same thing and then you could actually track that rosary for the people involved to like see where it goes On a map throughout the world. You know the whole point being like the rosary is such a powerful prayer and Mary does incredible things. Let's invite people into that in kind of a tangible way, kind of a light invitation to involve them. And and so I mean I kind of was like I hope we did that someday. And then just a couple months later I was talking with a buddy mine, the guy who runs Catholic I about a different project and I just kind of happened to mention this at the end of the conversation. He was like yo, dude, I think we could build that for you. And I was like, okay, that'd be sweet. And Then I also, like two weeks later, was at this Conference and there was a lady there who like did a lot of rosary manufacturing and I was like could you give me like a couple thousand Rosaries? Like what would that look like? Custom design? And she was like yeah, they do this, this. And then, and then my dad's this Was kind of the craziest part to me my dad's company that he runs. They test for leaks and refineries and what they use to mark the leaks is like smart qr metals. And he was like we can just call that company and they can make you some custom like pilgrim rosary, qr metals, and so within like a couple months after that, it just like all came together and then we were like launching it, taking pre-orders and stuff. We sold out that first thousand pretty fast and now we've been going just since the beginning of the year and there's 3500 pilgrim rosaries in 49 of the 50 states in the United States and then in over 20 countries, five different continents. So it's really spread. It's funny, the only state that doesn't have a pilgrim rosaries Idaho. I don't know what's going on, but they need Mary. I don't know what they have against Mary in Idaho, but somebody needs to get out there.

So all right, if you're listening in Idaho to this episode, you need to log on and you need to get a pilgrim rosary and get that Going. Exactly, Idaho is up with them over there. That that is. You know I it's so funny how I mean obviously we know this, but just see God working in the smallest ways. It's just like a random idea. You just saw the two you know older women just handing rosaries out. I was like, oh yeah, that'd be cool, That'd be like a cool project one day. But then you forget about it and just keeps popping up and God's like nope, I want you to do this. I'm just gonna keep putting it in your way and eventually we'll figure it out. So that's and God. God works in mysterious ways. Do you have any other projects that you're working on? Or I mean you already have. You're already busy being a parish priest and the Concerts or anything else that is kind of a brewing in the works.

Yeah, I always got a few things here. We're planning a big conference for the diocese, for people in the diocese, in the spring, for family. So, being people in Houston or close to Houston, please come out for that conference. It's the last week in April. I'm also working on a book right now on discerning God's will and just stop finishing up the manuscript for that. So I'm excited for that, and then I should be starting some reflections on a podcast producing too. So all that stuff tends to kind of work together and God's opened some doors with those things. So, nick, to do what we can with, with social media, to spread the word and hopefully, with vocation.

Oh, beautiful. Well, god bless you and all the work that you're doing. How, how can our listeners find out more about you, getting contact you find about the concert at Pilgrim Rosary and and all that as well?

Basically wherever they. If they use social media, wherever they follow is usually gonna work out Facebook, instagram, working on TikTok. Ticktock's a weird place. I have somebody else who posts for me on Ticktock. It's a little bit weird, but they're there too and then they can always join the newsletter just going to my website.

Father David Michael Moses comm will have all that information and we'll get them in the loop Newsletters a good way to stay in the loop for the concert and that kind of thing perfect, yeah, and I'll put links in the channels for all you guys as well, so you can can follow father on on all those social media platforms that we're telling you not to go on. Please do, please do Well, father. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Do you mind giving us your final blessing? Then we'll say goodbye.

Sounds good. I'm so, holy spirit, they really bother. Give you Thanks. You missed great ministry and mainly podcast Good work. That they do give you thanks for all those listening today that you will pour your blessings down upon them. That you will form their hearts as good disciples of your son. They might become great saints for your kingdom. Imitating your son with sacrificial love to the position, my hands, intercession to blessed Virgin Mary. All the saints Now, mighty God bless it. Keep you always, the father and the son and the holy spirit, oh amen.

Thank you so much, father. Really appreciate your time. Until next time, everyone go out there and be a saint.