Fr. David Michael Moses shares how he got started on social media, what inspires him to keep creating, and how his digital mission brings faith to unexpected places.
Transcript:
Maybe I’ll just start there with you. How did you get started making videos? Where you emerge out of the- that freaked me out that one. You know what I’m talking about? The lady is walking by and you are literally submerged, I believe, in the fountain of the parish.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to reach you about your souls extended warranty!”
But how did you end up doing this?
Yeah, yeah, that one specifically was kind of a playoff of the trend of, you know, people kind of coming out of nowhere and asking you about your car’s extended warranty, right? Oh, and so the joke was your souls extended warranty talking about your eternal life, so that was a bit.
No, it’s not something I thought about a lot, honestly. When I first got ordained, I had kind of a background making videos. I made videos in high school, made some videos in seminary, actually had a job in college making videos for the art gallery. But when I got ordained, I wasn’t honestly thinking very much about social media or anything like that. I just very quickly had an awareness of how much I love being a priest. Just love what priests get to do all day.
And I thought, man, when I was a young guy thinking about priesthood, it would have been awesome to have known what priests were doing all day. That would have been a huge help for my discernment.And I thought, okay, well, I am a priest now. Maybe I should start making some videos about what priests do all day. Maybe that would be helpful for a young guy who was starting priesthood.Because priesthood, discernment of anything is based on the right information. And so I thought, maybe there should be a little bit more information out here about the day-to-day of priesthood life.
And the next day actually I was going to be baptizing quintuplets. And I thought, okay, this is probably kind of unique to be baptizing quintuplets. I should probably record this.I recorded the video, posted it online. Didn’t think too much of it. But it got a very positive response from Catholics, non-Catholics, and guys who were thinking about priesthood.And I thought, okay, well, maybe there’s something here; maybe it’s worth kind of leaning into this and seeing what happens.
That’s a wonderful, wonderful idea. Because I had there, for one thing, I mean, if we have a generation who maybe has less exposure to priests. And so even if they feel called, they don’t have, in many cases, a role model like guys of earlier generations. They had those, you know, the five parish priests. That’s their role model or even priests in their school. There’s just not many Catholic schools; even the priest visits from time to time. But the kids don’t know much about him.
That’s so true. I mean, even day-to-day in the culture, people don’t really see someone wearing a collar very often at all. So it is kind of this sort of distant, mysterious thing. And I think the mystery is rightly placed. But mysteries are something to be discovered, not something to be dismissed. So I think the mystery of the priesthood and what priests do all day is actually one of the ways. I think if we lean into that, that could be a real connection point with the culture.
And you’re a priest of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, and so you have, you’re not just like a media figure, you have a daily life. Do you find that this, well, you’ve seen like a very energetic person. You don’t, it doesn’t seem like you’re lacking in energy. But this fits in with the demands that you have as a priest?
Yeah, so I appreciate you mentioning that. I am a full-time parish priest. Some of the Prokiel Vicarure at a parish. The first parish I went to, we had 20,000 parishioners. The average age was 20, and we had two priests. And so there was just a boatload of work to do day-to-day. The parish I’m at now in Houston is also huge. We’ve got about 12,000 parishioners and again two priests. So I have a very full day-to-day workload.
So that’s actually why I use social media so much. People do say like, how do you have time for this, you know, with everything else that you’re doing. And for me, the reason I do social media is because time is so limited. I’m always looking for high-leverage ways to connect with as many people as possible.
So for me, what’s great about social media is that if you, let’s say you preach a homily in person, that’s great for the people who are there. But if you record that homily and post it online, then that homily keeps getting preached and you can go on and do something else, but it keeps evangelizing.
So for me, in today’s culture with the situation with vocations, especially here in Houston, we have lots of people, but we need to get that ratio of priests up. I think evangelizing online is a very high-leverage way of using your time as effectively as possible. Because you can just make that video, post it, it keeps on going, and you can move on to something else. And what’s cool for me too is I very much make videos for my people, for my parishioners. You know, I had a dad come up to me this week saying how his whole family is watching all of my YouTube videos. And you know, kids in the youth group telling me all the friends follow on TikTok, that kind of stuff. So for me, it’s very much for my parishioners. And if other people see it, hey, fantastic, it doesn’t take more of my energy or time away from the people. So I very much see the online ministry as an extension of the in-person ministry, which is primary.
So what do you love about being a priest? I mean, you said you loved the life of the priest and you wanted to share that. What do you love about it?
I mean, I think I can honestly say I love everything. I mean, I love being called a father. I mean, that is like deeply beautiful and moving to me, that we address our priests as fathers. I was 25 when I got ordained. I felt like this parish, you know, I joked that most of my kids are older than me, you know, because all these people way older than me are calling me father. And to get to have that kind of relationship with your people is just absolutely extraordinary. But I also love, especially as a parish priest, a diocesan priest. Just the rhythm of day-to-day life. You know, I have morning mass at 7 a.m. this morning, I have my coffee, got some writing done for different things. You know, I got meetings today. We’ll have confirmation with the kids tonight. I got confessions tonight. Just the rhythm, just the dynamism of parish life. I find it super, super fulfilling. And it’s just crazy to me that the devil has convinced so much of my generation that being a priest would be a sad way to spend your life when really I can’t imagine doing anything else. To get to be to act in the person of Jesus Christ, to be a father for his people, to love the way he loved. I just wouldn’t want to do anything else.
And one of the things I noticed that you shared on the video, it just like the sentence that caught me was about, you know, when you become a priest, you don’t have to put away the talents that God gave you, you know, the various other talents that you’re a musician and, I don’t know, a brain surgeon or rocket scientist. I don’t know, you’re a lot of different things, but maybe I’m not, maybe some of those I’m not quite accurate on. But it does seem to me that you’re having fun using the talents God gave you to accomplish the mission God gave you.
Yeah, I’m glad you liked that because when I first entered seminary, I very much thought, and I think this is a good disposition to be honest. I very much thought like, okay, a lot of my gifts and my talents, I’m kind of putting those to the side. I’m going to go follow Jesus. And I think that’s good to have that disposition of surrender to be willing to give up everything. Yeah, that I think is, in many ways, responding to the call appropriately. But what’s kind of interesting, I think is for Jesus, he wants you to be detached.But at the end of the day, if he gave you gifts, that’s probably because he wants you to use them. But he wants you to use them for the kingdom and not just for your own glory. And so that’s what I’ve seen with myself and also for my brothers who go on through seminary to become priests. It’s like, man, if you have some kind of gift or a talent, the Lord probably wants you to be detached from it. But he probably wants to transform it and actually live in it and purify it and then bring it back for something better than ever before for the sake of the gospel. So for me, whether that’s been videos or music or anything else, trying to hopefully leverage those and put those at the altar for God to use.
So, I mean, you come from a Catholic family. And that is- That mother and father, those brothers and sisters- That is the seed ground of vocations. Were there priests for you that were, whether they maybe were saints, you know, maybe, you know, St. Philip Neri or something or, you know, an old-timer or somebody that was in your parish? What were your models of the priesthood that drew you?
Well, one, I wish that you mentioned family, you know, because you’re absolutely right. That is just huge when it comes to vocations. Both of my parents were converts to the Catholic faith, with both of my dad’s siblings and their spouses. All six of them came to the church a few years before I was born. And actually, my parents were very involved in pro-life work. My dad used to lead these things called rescues, where they would, this was sanctioned by the bishop, so I would not recommend people go try this at home. But at the time, they would go and lay down in front of abortion clinics. And then, actually, get like a hundred and a minute women to lay down. You probably have heard some of that stuff. So he went to jail 13 times at one point. He was sentenced to 18 months. He served about six. And so I grew up, you know, most kids at bedtime listen to fairy tales. And we all grew up listening to jail stories at bedtime. You know, “Dad tells a jail story.” That was very much the backdrop for me. Very much the backdrop of, hey, whatever Jesus asks of you, you say yes. And that’s what I saw with my parents. Like whatever he asked of them, they said yes. And my mom was just super heroic with kids at home with my dad in jail.
And one time my dad even, he doesn’t like to tell this story. But at one point, he got invited to lunch with somebody. This pastor said, “Hey, you should really meet this guy.” And he goes to lunch. And the guy says, “Hey man, you know, Rex, there’s really no easy way to say this. You’re causing a lot of problems for the abortion industry, which is causing a lot of problems for organized crime.” And so they basically paid me $50,000 to kill you.
What?
But the guy said to him, he said, “But I recently became a Christian. And I asked my pastor, can I still do this?” And the pastor was like, “Probably not. You probably shouldn’t kill him because you’re a Christian now.” And so my dad, they said, “Hey, I’m not going to do it, but I just wanted to let you know.” And for my dad, you know, a lot of people would have been like, oh gosh, this is dangerous. I don’t want to do this anymore. And it said, my dad was like, “Hey, well, I guess it’s working. You know, I guess we’re pursuing it where it really matters.”
What a beautiful testimony to your parents! We got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back with Father David Michael Moses!