The Exorcist Files - BONUS: Singleness, Discernment and The Priesthood with Father Moses

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Today we bring you a bonus episode. Ryan sits down with Father David Michael Moses, who has gone viral online for his hilarious videos and savvy social media that helps bring the gospel to millions and praise to the priesthood.Sign Up For The Vault To (http://exorcistfiles.supercast.com) Get Exclusive Access to Ask Me Anything Episodes with Father Martins and "The Case Behind The Case"Want to start your health journey? Visit livemomentous.com (https://livemomentous.com) and use code EXFILES for 20% off your new routine today.Thanks to Lumen, for sponsoring this episode! Head to lumen.me/EXFILES (https://lumen.me/exfiles) for 15% off your purchase.Exodus90 (https://exodus90.com/exfiles) - The ultimate mens spiritual formation challenge. Join their Advent Challenge TodaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, Father Martins here. I hope this note finds you well. I'm still recovering from my fall, but man, it still hurts. Don't break ribs. Trust me. If you haven't grabbed a copy of my book, The Exorcist Files, it makes a perfect holiday gift. And besides, what in heaven's name are you going to read between Christmas and New Year's? Get the book now, friends. Today, Ryan interviews Father David Michael Moses. an impressive priest from Texas. Father Moses has a passion for modeling the priesthood, especially to the young. He enjoys showing people how rewarding it is to be a priest. I appreciate his work and how inspiring he is to so many. I wanted to do an interview with him because spiritual warfare is not just about fighting demons in exorcism. It's about living as close to God as you can, slugging it out day in, day out. And Father Moses has some great stories of just that very thing. Lastly, Advent is now upon us. You men, if you haven't signed up for Exodus 90, you're crazy. Get with the rest of us. I can't recommend it enough. Go to

Exodus 90.com slash X-Files. That's Exodus. 90.com slash eX files and sign up. Enjoy the show and God bless you. Hello, Exorcist Files listeners. Welcome to a very special bonus episode. It has been said that all of us represent the body of Christ, with each of us playing a unique and distinct part.

Regular listeners of this show know that I am not the ears of the body, but rather a mouthpiece. Today we welcome a face of the body. He's been called one of the best-looking priests in the Tri-County area and is certainly the best-looking evangelist of Christ on this Riverside call. I am proud to bring on my good friend, Father David Michael Moses, and of course he does share some similarities with the other famous Moses, except instead of parting the seas, he parted his fantastic hair, how he gets it the way it does. We will find out, hopefully, near the end of this interview. Please put your scriptures together and however many books.

of your Bible you have for Mr. Father David, Michael, Moses. Thanks for being your father. Thank you so much for having me. You're just as funny live as you're on the recorded episodes. Well, thank you, Father. I would say, though, I am looking at this going, as good as we feel about the long arm and the extension of the influence of the Exorcist Files.

There's been rumors of this revival of priests and rock music, and apparently you are leading this movement because I have watched since I met you, your Instagram has grown more than, Pentecost grew the early followers of the church. It is amazing to see the reaction. Your Instagram game is fantastic. Your vertical videos. Folks, there are videos of him breakdancing. There are videos of him showing a tattoo of his wife, which, spoiler, he doesn't have one. So I always say, ladies, he's spoken for by the Lord. But it's really clever and it's bringing so

many people. It's cool, right, father, to show that priests can have fun. I really think that you're shattering a stereotype that religion has to be all somber. and it's just cool to see you relating to a whole new generation. Well, man, I just love being a priest. And I think it's wild that the devil has convinced an entire generation of young men that being a priest is not a deeply beautiful way to spend your life. And so for me, like getting to experience it on the inside, these beautiful moments as a priest, moments that lead to a very deep, lasting joy.

I just really want to share that. And it's been cool to see the response online. Absolutely. It's a great segue. I would love to hear a little bit about you. your journey to the priesthood. I'm generally curious. Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got called to the priesthood. Yeah, so I grew up in a Catholic family, although my parents were actually converts to the Catholic faith. Both my parents converted to Catholicism in their late 20s

after they've been married with both of my dad's siblings and their spouses. So all six of them came in the Catholic Church at one time, just really attracted to the teachings of the Catholic Church on especially the value of human life. And so that's a gift that they really passed on to us and I was an altar server growing up. And being able to serve close to the Eucharist at Mass every Sunday, I just really felt like for me was the most important thing I was doing each week. Like if this was actually the body blood of Jesus Christ, then this was clearly the most important thing I was getting to be a part of. But I really didn't think too much about priesthood until I went on a silent retreat when I was 16. It was silent for the whole weekend doing the Ignatian

spiritual exercises. And I just felt the Lord saying in my heart, it might be you. It might be you that I'm calling. And I remember at one point, the priest leading the retreat, he said, you should choose the vocation that will make you a saint. And that just hit me like, that's priesthood. And I didn't really know why I thought that, but it was a very clear response in my heart. And so I remember telling the priest on the retreat, I said, hey, I'm kind of feeling drawn to the priesthood right now. But I really want to get married. I really like girls. I don't know what to do with that. I loved his response. He said, that's totally normal. That's fine. But God still might be calling you. And that might be something you need to sacrifice. And so I started praying a lot,

going daily mass. And ultimately, I would say just like fell in love with how a priest could help people. I want to spend my life in service and what more could I possibly do for somebody than literally give them Jesus in the Eucharist and literally forgive their sins in the person of Christ through confession. And so over time felt like that would probably be worth giving my life to. And then you kind of alluded to it. Certainly celibacy is kind of the kicker when it comes to being a priest, something we talked a lot about in seminary. But I think I've grown to love celibacy as a gift because it really is assigned to the world of what I value. It's a union with Christ in a deeply beautiful way.

It is an emptying of yourself, hopefully like Christ in the cross, so that you can really be all in for the people. Wow. I'm going to ask an ignorant question here, too, being the Protestant here, but in some rights, there are priests who are married, right? So is it automatically mutually exclusive, or are those people who are already married and then discerned the priesthood? What's sort of the options?

Sure. No, there are some guys who were ministers of some non-Catholic Christian faith, and when they become Catholic, they have a special disposition to keep their wives, stay married. And there are guys in the Eastern churches, like you mentioned. If you grow up in those churches and you're part of that nationality, you certainly could get married, as long as you get married prior to ordination, to the deaconate, at least. And if your wife were to die, you can't get remarried, right? But the norm in the church, still especially for us, here in the West, is to not be married. And for me, Christ was not married, right?

So there is something, while it's not essential to the character of priesthood, there is something very fitting if you're going to act in the person of Christ, that not only that you be a man, but that you actually be celibate and be in union with him in that way. Certainly the church and her wisdom can allow certain other situations, but I think there's a reason why this has been preserved. That's something as I've grown in my deep appreciation and understanding of the Catholic Church. That's something that's genuinely confused me is how, if we're going to grant Peter being the first pope, who I think by tradition was married,

how do we get around this? And I've been told it's not a point of doctrine, but of practice. I may be butchering that. But is that correct? Well, we would say it's not a dogma in terms of it's not revealed by God that only celibate men can be priest, which is why there are some allowances for it. But it is certainly the practice right now. Yeah, exactly, especially for here in the West, that priest be celibate. Again, there's just a lot of beauty in that and being in union with Christ. I think one thing I would say is that, one, if you're a married priest, right, there's going to be moments when your parish has some needs and your wife and your kids have some needs and someone is going to come second. Like there's going to be moments where somebody has to

come second. And clearly married priests are able to make that work. But I think for me, I love the fact that I'm free and I'm focused as a freedom and celibacy that I don't have to choose who comes first and who comes second. It's always the flock, but it's always the people. And I think ultimately, if a man is going to lead the church, we want to know that he's all in on this. We want to know that he's taking this seriously. And so celibacy was such a difficult thing for me to discern and there to be a lot of time to have peace about it. But now I really do feel like, oh, no, it makes sense that when you come to serve the Lord, that you have given up your self-interest in a lot of ways. And after that, everything just flows. Well, I mean, in scripture would back you up on this,

right? First Corinthians 7, right, the married man's attention is divided on how to please God and how to please his spouse. It's an unpopular verse sometimes, but I've always wrestle with that because he does say like three ways, essentially like it is better to remain single, right? For the married man, you know, will face many trials in this kind, right? And so I've had a few married men come on the show and say amen. That's hard from Paul is not referenced enough and he's pretty clear. He's pretty clear about the value there in terms of exactly what you're saying, who you're serving. Someone's going to have to come second. Yeah. And also I think it probably gives you a unique station too because One of the subtle lies that's been told to a lot of generation is that if you don't get married,

you're somehow lesser of a Christian that your formation is not complete. And there just seem to be an idolatry of marriage in some ways. And it's such a beautiful thing and it's so important and it's vital and it's amazing. Also, there's a lot of people who just never found their partner for whatever reason or widowed. And this idea that if you're single, there's something wrong with you. And you being, I'll say, look, I live a content, full, joyful life in an early 30s single, A celibate male is the founder of our faith. 100%.

Now, you want to make sure that marriage certainly is a very effective vehicle to sanctification to get to heaven, but ultimately no one is married in heaven, right? So it is not the ultimate good, and we don't want to worship marriage as though it's a good. It's a foreshadowing and a taste of the eternal banquet, the union with Christ that we want to have. So certainly we have different ways of living that out for each of us, but we want to, yeah, to your point, you want to be careful that we're not making this an idol, that we're seeing in its proper place as a vehicle toward holiness. Well, I'm imagining you probably can look some of parishioners or people in the eye,

and they're like, I don't know, like, the culture is so rampant and with permiscuity and sort of like lax ethics. And you can say, I'm alive. It's not requirements to follow those behaviors. Like, I'm happy, content, and normal. I feel like you're a direct witness against maybe one of the lies our generation says about the permiscuity and just sort of the dissolution of the traditional boundaries around sexuality and stuff.

Totally. You know, I would say that our culture kind of says that. sex is love, right? And I'm a man who's celibate, but I would say I have tons of love in my life, right? So to your point, that's a witness of no, love isn't necessarily that, right? There's a way to live this. And so certainly whether it's somebody who is trying to stay pure for marriage, right, to see a priest who's celibate is an encouragement, somebody who is maybe struggling with same-sex attraction and wouldn't be able to pursue marriage to see a priest who celibate as an encouragement, or even a couple that maybe has some kind of health issues or is waiting to conceive a child. They need to have a time

of celibacy for some reason. Good to know that they're priest is celibate all the time, right? I think it's good that we're not putting burdens on people, that we're not living ourselves. And so I think we can actually walk with them through that and be a real source of encouragement. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge begins this year on January 20th. But this isn't just a 90-day program. Exodus 90 is a spirituality for modern men that is built on three ancient pillars, prayer, self-sacrifice, and fraternity. We all long for something more. We long to be the men God created us to be, sons of a loving father. It's time to turn

away from our idols. It's time to break free from the pharaohs that hold us in bondage. If you're ready to make a fresh start and embark on a journey to uncommon freedom in Jesus Christ, then download the Exodus 90 app today. This is your chance to break free, refocus, and rediscover who God is calling you to be in the new year. It starts January 20th. So go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to learn more about Exodus 90. that's exodus 90.com slash eX files to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January 20th. God bless you.

Absolutely. Well, Father, I do want to ask because you have such an amazing ministry now, and it's so cool to see how much you've exploded on social media and just leverage it. It is cool to see it redemptively used to where you're helping breakdown barriers, getting able to think about things. Your popularity is a gift that allows people to explore more facets of the church. So it's just really cool to see. And folks, if you have and you have to check out his videos, they are hilarious.

But what's your main heart with your ministry? It seems like you would naturally appeal to a lot of younger sort of Gen Z, et cetera. Is there something that's kind of like a mission in there that just is really like the outpouring of all the work you're doing? Yeah. It started for me as just trying to show what priesthood was. I feel like a lot of people don't know what priests do all day. And for young men, it's hard to discern something that you don't understand.

And so when you have some more data about priesthood, I think that can be helpful. But I found that a wider audience found that interesting and certainly tried to respond to that need. You know, you kind of alluded to the dangers of social media, super dangerous, right? I think we have to be super, super careful. My approach is I see social media like a bad neighborhood, that I wouldn't recommend my family, go live there. I wouldn't just go there alone by myself in the middle of the night and walk around. But I do think every bad neighborhood should have a church there. And I think every bad neighborhood should have a priest in that church to minister to those people.

And so for me, social media is a dangerous place, certainly, but that there should be a church there and there should be a priest there. And it's worth trying to bring some light. And so it's been fascinating to kind of see the response from people. But I think ultimately we're in a battle for souls. I mean, that's it. and souls often gravitate toward things that are drawing their attention, right? And so I think we're in a battle with the enemy for attention, for people's souls.

And so I think if we're able as a church to capture people, to meet them where they're at, as St. Paul says, to be all things to all people and to bring them toward light and truth. Maybe eventually they just get off social media totally. That's awesome. But ultimately, I'm trying to save souls, right? I mean, that is the purpose of my life. and I've seen a lot of fruit with social media and trying to reach that. So talk to me a little bit about the, in your particular battleground, in your front,

I guess we're all technically, according to Paul, we are waging a war. So each of us has our unique front. Tell us a little bit of count, what do you see on your front? Like, where is the enemy accruing winds? Where do you think the church and your ministry is seeing a lot of fruit? But what's the battle, I think, maybe in generally for the church where you are, and then maybe personally with you and your ministry, what are some of the issues that you encounter?

Yeah, I guess for me, in terms of what I see, historically, people had a good sense of right and wrong. They were battling to do what was good and avoid what was wrong. And then I think there was a tradition phase where people changed how they were labeling good, right? What was good and what was bad is kind of be relabeled, and we see a lot of that. Now I think there's a point where it's like,

people don't care what's good and what's bad. That's not even the point of contention. It's just like whatever I think, want to do. I think that's the big battle right now in the culture is that we don't even really care what is good and what is bad. We're not even really interested in moral terms. We're more interested in what just seems nice to us in the moment. And I think that's outside the church and the culture, but definitely in the church, that we need to be caring. Like, we need to care about what's good. We need to recognize that there are things at stake and that there's a whole eternity ahead of us

that we need to be referencing in terms of our behavior. And that, there's a phrase I love, of we're hoping to be happy and we're happy to be hoping. Like we're hoping to be happy in heaven one day, but even now, the hope of eternal happiness is a reason to be happy now. And I think we have a lot of people who are kind of just listless, right? They're not tasting the happiness of eternity.

They're not letting it affect now. I saw a stat the other day. We know we've got a group of young people at a church or confirmation students. And something like 50% of high school kids experience persistent feelings of sadness and hope. Almost half of kids in high school feel persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. They don't care.

Like there's a hopelessness to it. Like what's the point of all this? There's a real loss of meaning. And so for me, as a priest, through homilies, through the sacraments, I would say all of salvation history is God saying, I care and it matters. I mean, like, whether it was Adam and Eve, whether it was Moses and the Israelites, whether it's Jesus himself, all of it is God saying, guys, I care. and it matters. Like what you're doing matters to me. I care about it. Jesus on the cross,

the crucifix itself, might as well have a big plaque that says, I care, signed God. That's the point of it. And so I think to help people recognize, like, it matters. Everything you're doing matters. You matter. The way you act matters. God cares about this stuff. And not in a kind of a burden, some oppressive sort of way, but in a freeing way. Like, no, this is meaningful. Like there's hope. Like we can actually affect things in ourselves and with other people. That's the bad lie. see, and so certainly in my homilies, the masses, the confessions, in my meetings, to be with social media ministry, that's that for me is a huge point of contention is we need to care, we need to know that matters, and that's what we're going to find ultimate peace and joy. That's beautiful.

Now, Father, I know you probably don't have words to describe the exorcist files and the just seismic impact it has on your own personal journey, but spiritual warfare, I'm assuming obviously any priest with permission from their bishop can perform an exorcism, but I think we've talked, your battles with spiritual warfare takes on a bit of a different form than maybe some of the, obviously, the extreme cases that we document. What's kind of been your exposure to, we'll call it to the dark side of the force? Sure. Well, I think one of the big values of the exorc files that I've seen, listening to the episodes and talking with other people, is a lot of times people will look at things like going to fortune teller or playing with terror cards or a Ouija

board as like, oh, I know it, the church doesn't like it, but I'm not doing it seriously. So who cares, right? It's fine. And it's interesting because I think would tell people like, no, the problem with those things isn't that we don't believe they do anything. The problem is that we do believe they do stuff. Even if you're not taking it seriously, maybe especially if you're not taking it seriously, you're really opening a door. And I mean, if you just drive down any of the major roads, even in my city, you'll see fortune teller. You'll see all kinds of stuff. And it's good for people to know you don't mess with this stuff. And I think this podcast has done such a great job of exposing that for people. That's going to cause a huge problem. For me, personally,

Again, like I'm not an exorcist or anything like that, but it has been amazing to see different things. In our area, there's like a group of Satanists who sometimes will try to get hosts. So the pastor, people will tell him, hey, I've heard people are trying to get hosts. So we need to watch out for that. There's even one young woman who I've seen out here who apparently, very sadly, was raised in a really dark kind of cult situation and has really battled through that in a really beautiful way and actually was able to get baptized. Her baptism apparently took about two hours because she was manifesting so much. much. She still has moments when she still kind of goes back to the personality, it seems like.

And I remember one morning I was getting ready. Sometimes we do these all-day confessions, especially during Advent and Lent, kind of the penitential season. So I was getting ready to hear confessions for like 18 hours and like that. And I woke up early and I just check my phone. I'd be offline the rest of the day to make sure everything was fine. And I got this email from her. And it was sent to several different priests. And it said, let's play priests. It's been a while. and had like the lips emoji, were super freaky. And at another point,

she sent us an email. Somebody had sent her the R father because she was having some kind of episode. They sent her the R. Father who art in heaven. And she emailed back the R. Father, what looked like the R. Father in Latin, except at each point where it said, like, Our Father Who Art in Heaven,

she would replace it in perfect Latin with, like, Our Father who art in hell. And so it's Infernes instead of the word for heaven. and there's basically like the upside down our father, basically demonic our father, everything flipped around towards Satan. And to get that in your inbox, you know, just as a parish priest, is a little bit jarring, like it's a little bit freaky. So while I haven't had a lot of interactions with her outside of that, I've seen some

the emails. And so it's a good reminder like, no, this stuff is real. This is an interesting exercise, right? Because if you just look at the retribution that people get for taking stances on particular issues of morality, I think you told me offline to you. It runs in the family to get targeted. You mentioned that your dad actually had a run in the hitman. Yeah, so my dad did a lot of pro-life work before I was born,

and he organized big groups of guys to go to abortion clinics, and they'd all lay down in front of the abortion clinics, very peacefully. And they had a charge against them, which was trespassing. Technically, if you believe a life is in danger, you can actually trespass. So they didn't even believe that they were trespassing because they thought the lives of the babies were in danger. But eventually the clinics were called the police. The police would have to come take them in a way.

But it would take hours to take 100 grown men away. So it was very difficult for the abortion clinics to run their businesses, right? They would start to shut down. They shut down every abortion clinic in Corpus Christi while he was doing this. But it caused a lot of problems for organized crime, for people who were involved in things like prostitution and that kind of stuff. It made it very difficult for them when they didn't have access to abortions. So one day my dad gets a call from a pastor and he says, hey, I've got a parishioner,

I think you need to meet for lunch. He goes, okay, sure. So they meet for lunch. And the guy says, hey, I'll just cut to the chase. I'm a hitman. I had some people who are frustrated about what you're doing because it's hurting their business. They reached out to me and they offered me $50,000 to kill you.

But I recently became a Christian and I asked my pastor, can I still do this? And the pastor was like, no, you can't. You're a Christian. So I just thought I would come and let you know that they're trying to do this. And he was like, if you want the money, I can give it to you. My dad was like, no, I'm good.

And that was it. So I do think, for me, evil retaliates. When you're doing good things, evil's going to retaliate in some way. He had his car bombed at one point. He just came out and it had been bombed. Thankfully, he wasn't in it at the time. Certainly, I mean, we are in a battle. We see it sometimes a little bit more explicitly than other times, but that's what's at stake.

Wow. So the hitman, he had collected the money because typically the people who pay hitmen, like, really are pretty discerning reviewers and they want their money's worth. So I don't know if you just give that money back or how that works. I also love that he went back to just click. clarify, hey, is there like a dispensation that I, you know, my yes, BS and my nobody, you know? Isn't that amazing? That amazing.

I can't get on my word. Can I still do this or no? This would be contrary to the more. I don't want to let him down. I mean, I said I do it, right? You Christians are always like, keep your word, right? Exactly. You can't be a hit man and a Christian.

Like, sorry, so that's a spoiler. If any hit men are listening or hit women, please, you are not allowed to do that. You're going to have to find a new source of income. We hate to break it to you. Oh my gosh. Well, that is crazy. And also, you mentioned the satanic cult stuff. And it's interesting because we get a lot of emails in the show too. I actually got a Satanist who emailed us and said, hey, thank you for representing us accurately. You know, we're not just some anarchy and that you guys actually presented our threat accurately. And I said, great. I'm glad I'm posterity.

I think you mentioned a story too where it's as a temptation to even try and recruit children into this stuff. I think you mentioned that a mom had discovered a box of hosts in her kids' room. Oh, totally. There was a lady at a, I'll just say generally at another parish I was at, and she came to Mass a lot. She was very faithful. And one day she came to the office, and I could tell she was really shaken up. And she said, father, I have a son, teenager. He's, and I'm concerned about him. He's not real engaged in things. He seems blissless. But I just felt something saying I should go into his room. And I just went to his closet and there was this weird box there and opened up and it was just full of hosts. And she said, I guess when he was coming to Mass with us, he just wasn't

consuming it and was sticking in and do his pocket or something. And it was just putting in this box. And so she was really, obviously, really freaked out by that. So in that situation, you obviously need to take the host back and such. But I think it's important people to recognize, like when we're receiving communion, we're not thinking about what it is. If we don't take seriously what it is, well, the devil's taking seriously what it is, which is why it's so important to be safeguarding consecrated hosts. You know, obviously we want Jesus to be accessible for the people. We want to be giving out communion to everybody who's in a state of grace and wants to come forward. But it's a team effort to make sure that we're taking this seriously because there are definitely other forces out there.

One thing I have seen in my ministry that seems to carry a lot of power is the exercise Benedict medals. So St. Benedict, right, has a great history of being able to really fight evil well, especially with his food being poisoned and him being doing the sign of the crossover and the jar is breaking and such. And I've seen several experiences, the people who, if they're wearing a Benedict Medal, it is a huge source of protection. I met with a couple very early on after I was ordained a priest who their Benedict Medal, they felt like hands rip it off their neck. And they felt in these visible hands holding their neck. They eventually were able to find the Benedict Medal, which made the choking, like, go away. But stories like that, or a buddy of mine, he was meeting

with a young lady who, he was concerned that she had some obsession, that kind of thing, maybe he was possessed. It turns out she had a history of that in her family. And there was always a specific chair that she always sat in his office, that first, chair by the door. And so before she came in, he exercised a Benedictine medal, did a special exercise of the metal, and then taped it underneath her chair. And he said that she walked in, went to sit down, stopped, made like a grimacing face, and then sat in the other chair. And he said, even for him in that moment, he was like, dang, like this is really doing stuff. Like, these Benedict medals are clearly being sensed by whatever was in her that was maybe

a little bit off. So I think a real encouragement to people to use those. Well, that's the perfect setup for Fount of Grace, our sponsor. You didn't even know that. We have a partner in Fount of Grace. No, legit, Father didn't know this, but we do have a partner of Fountive Grace who does awesome Catholic jewelry, and they do miraculous medals.

And Father did a history of the St. Benedict Medal on an episode earlier. It was really fascinating because, you know, as Protestants, our merch is more, I hate to denigrate it by calling it merch. But, you know, we're into journals and coffee mugs because great coffee is vital.

If you're going to go quietly pick and choose the commentary that you want to reflect your worldview, you get a good cup of coffee to go with that, right? But that is wild. It sounds too like, Father, you also have a great litmus test. If you're thinking about going out on a date with a girl, you should just put a St. Benedict medal underneath the chair at the restaurant. And if she says, I can't sit here, you just save yourself the meal, right? And just tell your young adults, easy way to see. I was joking if there's an object, I could put in my hand. And the first time, if you shake her hand when you meet her, they flinch. It's probably like, hey, saves you a lot of time, right? Exactly. There you go. That's like the best filter out there. I know. That's interesting. I'll have to try that strategy. things that's a divide, but also just a great point of union. We did an episode on Eucharistic miracles and it was just so moving. And obviously there is a tremendous theological difference that does divide Catholics and Protestants in one sense. But I talk to a lot of Protestants who

have been convicted that they need to take communion more seriously, that it is something, it's very serious. And obviously, your discernment of your vocation came from interaction with the Holy Presence. You also mentioned impact. You had a story, even using the Hauser-created host to go and minister to sick people. The enemy is seemingly even tried to target that. It's offended by the sheer presence. It seems that this is a direct endorsement of the seriousness of it. Oh, totally, yeah. The Eucharist, I mean, for us as Catholics, we say it's the source and the summit of our faith, because it's not just a representative of Christ or a vehicle of grace. It really is Christ himself, right? It is the Bible of Jesus Christ. And just as 2,000 years ago,

the devil was trying to destroy the body of Christ on the cross. So in the same way, he's still trying to destroy the body of Christ in our members, right, in the people, but also certainly in the host itself. So when I go to do sick calls, I'll often bring the host with me in the little picks, the little gold container for anointings of the sick, and then we often give people the host. And yeah, I had this one kind of bizarre experience. You know, you walk in people's houses and you often get a sense of what's going on.

You feel it. Sometimes you feel the heaviness, especially sometimes they want a house blessing, that kind of thing. In this particular case, I came in. I felt the heaviness in the house, but I needed to anoint the lady, so I anointed her. And as soon as I started the anointing, we put out these oils to basically put oil on the forehead and the palms. And this random keyboard keyboard in the corner, no one was even near, just started going off. This random music, like this obnoxious music.

Like when you're watching a movie and it's like a scary circus scene and it's like this weird, dystopian kind of fake happy clown music. That's what it was. It was really annoying. And the husband felt bad. He felt like it was inappropriate. So he went over and tried to turn off, trying it off. And I'm continuing with the anointing. He cannot get to turn off.

Eventually just gives up, comes back, and came for the time for her to receive the Eucharist to pull out the host. And I just thought like, Jesus, you're about to show up here. You're about to be exposed. This should be a moment of reverence. And to have this music going would be sort of mocking.

I felt like, Jesus, you don't want this. I don't want this. And I just felt emboldened. I don't do stuff like this normally. Just to say, to the toy. And so I just did. I just kind of held the host,

and I looked over at the toys, and I was like, be silent. And a second later, just stopped. Thank you, Lord. Now we can now treat the Eucharist in this moment with the reverence that it deserves. So I don't claim to know exactly what was going on there, but it was a striking moment for me.

We have an episode on that this season, about a music box that would just go off in this woman's house. And she would say, it seems to know when I'm not thinking about it, just like it's toying with me. And Father puts Holy Water on it and lifts it up, and there's no parts in it. I know.

It's wild stuff. Do you feel like you get a sense of what the excitement, the disciples, would have felt when they realize that the demonic principalities, respond to them when their authority of Christ on them? And they come back and they're like, Jesus, the demons submit to us, right? It seems pretty interesting that this was the timing of all this, right? And so it's got to be pretty cool. You'd be like, this is pretty awesome.

Oh, for sure. I mean, for me, it's just a reminder of the deeper reality that as a baptized person, right, you are called to be a priest's prophet king, to be emboldened by the spirit. And certainly for me, as an ordained, ordained man, as a priest, to have the authority of Christ is crazy. Like, to be able to to take a piece of bread and say, this is my body, this is my blood, in the first person, and have it become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, or in confession to have someone come. And to say, in the first person, I absolve you in the person of Christ, and to have them walk in with sin and walk out without sin is insane, even though it happens a lot that doesn't take away from

the beauty of it. And it's, like you said, in your scripture, at one point, it says the people left rejoicing that God had given such authority to men. There are moments when you're kind of reminded of that, this crazy authority that you have. That certainly is an authority that's given, not for you, but for the good of the people, right? It's supposed to be the presence of Christ in that way.

So every once in a while, you have moments like the toy where you get reminded of the deeper reality that's always present. It's funny because in a lot of charismatic circles, too. I have a lot of friends talked about this on an episode of Father recently, but, I mean, they go into a hotel room.

They're like, hey, I legally am the occupant is room now. Spiritual authority mirrors earthly authority. I am the owner now occupier of this hotel. And I bless it. And they're just constantly speaking out loud. And it's an interesting dynamic because, you know, it's like when we, and I know in the charismatic tradition, when they say like, hey, like, I speak healing over you, like be healed. You're not saying that with a thousand percent confidence that Christ is not obeying you.

But you're like, there is an element of saying in faith, like, I'm a child of God. I'm a son of the king or daughter of the. the king. And these are promises you made that I will wield these weapons of spiritual warfare and to declare them outright and affirm them. And I see people like your story with the toy. I've just heard a lot of stories like that. And it makes you wonder, what's the downside of praying that? If the toy hadn't gone off, it's not like going to shake your faith, but it did. And now you're like, this is awesome. No, totally. I mean, God is looking for people who are available to be used. Right. God, like, is looking for somebody who's open and is ready. And so I think the more opportunities

you give the Lord to use you, of course, he's going to want to take some of those. You know, there might be moments when he does a little bit differently than we think in his wisdom, but I think availability to him is just a huge part of being a disciple and being willing and sometimes you see some really cool stuff. All right, now I have to ask because we do, this is one that comes up quite a bit, and I think they're still sold at most toy stores, but Ouija boards, big no-no. We know that. You're supposed to stick to Candyland or Shoots and Ladders, but what about, do you have any

Ouija board stories? Imagine ministering as long as you have. You must have heard something. Well, actually, it's funny. You mention that because my mom was a convert to the faith, and she grew up Southern Baptist. They have a lot of strict rules, but they don't have as much of maybe theology on this kind of stuff as we do. And so she was at a youth group event when she was a kid with a youth minister there, and somebody in the house pulled out like a Ouija boy and like that, let's play this. And she told me that as soon as they started playing, all of the lights in the house just went out. And she was like, this is bad.

have got to get out of here. So again, she didn't know like Ouija board bad, anything. But in that moment, she was like, there's something really bad about this. That's a story she told me growing up that I've heard. But certainly, yeah, as a priest, you hear stories about things and with people. And it is sad how prevalent that stuff's getting in the culture.

Even crystals. I mean, I had a lot of encounters with people interested in crystals. They say they feel some kind of healing power or something. I got an email from a lady recently who was running like a healing crystal business, had tons of inventory and had a bunch of crazy stuff start happening after she started selling these crystals. And her husband was like, get rid of everything. And so she emailed me and she was like, I've invested a lot of money in this stuff. Do I still need to get rid of all of it? And I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. You need to cut ties with this stuff. I visited

a girl in the hospital who I just got called in her room. I was there for an anointing and went in, young girl, probably at 17, 18 years old. And I was talking with her. And she just said she was experiencing a lot of just really bad physical ailments. And it had started a couple weeks ago. and I just asked her, have you been doing anything differently the last couple of weeks, maybe that you weren't doing before? And she said, no, nothing I can think of. Well, I did buy some crystals. And I was like, okay, what's that about?

She was like, yeah, I just heard that they were really powerful and they could help me a lot and that kind of thing. Okay, well, do you think maybe there's a connection with the crystals and this? And she was like, no, I don't think so. And I said, well, do you think you'd be willing to lay off the crystals for a while? I mean, you're in the hospital, right? Like maybe we could separate. And she looked, it got quiet and serious.

And she said, no, I'm not ready to do that. And I said, well, here's my card at the parish. I think you're making a really bad decision. I think you're really hurting yourself. And you're not going to find God unless you're willing to cut off the things that are not of God because God's not going to occupy the same space as sin. But I said, as soon as you're willing to talk about this more, here's my card, please, come talk to me.

I'll be available. And then I left. I mean, there wasn't much more I could do. But it was sad to see a young person dabbling with this stuff and it having such very clear negative effects. But there were some attachment there, you know? And so like the rich man in the gospel, she wasn't willing to give it all up

and so she went away sad. Rich man probably had a lot of crystals. For clarity standpoint, we don't want to love all this stuff together because like the Vatican's been very clear. Like, hey, this is why Freemason reason, oh, because in this case, you're taking explicit oaths, and again, without having any inside knowledgees,

but like those that we've profiled and studied, there's some pretty radical stuff you have to claim and basically placing something above God. And that's a no-no, obviously. And any sort of cult's interaction, it's a form of divination, which is basically violating the First Commandment. With crystals, I actually don't know a lot about crystals. On one hand, to play devil's abdic here, you know, you could argue, are there certain geological properties of rocks that may have some sort of magnetic force, right? There's theories, for example, that walking barefoot puts you in touch with that. I would say it's probably not a spiritual practice, but with crystals, would you say, Father,

it's the faith in these objects, or is it the adjacent sort of philosophies that tend to accompany buying crystals and what they signify? Yeah, you're not going to find in the catechism it's saying you cannot purchase crystals that look like this or this size. But certainly when we start to put a power in an object that is not of God, we're entering into really dangerous territory, right? And I would say that for anything. I mean, if you started to say that even a stuffed animal was a source of a divine power that wasn't from God that was going to help you towards something, that would be idolatry, right? And so I think there's a lot of different mechanisms for this. It seems like with Christers, there is something unique that when they come in contact with them, there's often some kind of negative manifestations that's negative effects in their lives. And especially because they talk about it being healing.

That seems, in my experience, the kind of reoccurring thing was like this crystal is going to heal me in some way. I mean, maybe you could argue that in some way. It's like the grounding effect or something with the electromagnetic pool. But then that would be a more science-based approach, not necessarily a supernatural one, which I think is that concern. Father Martins will say on our show

that mortal sin in particular is a larger gateway to demonic oppression. And mortal sin's bad, by virtue of disobeying God's commandments, the repercussions are, whether they're natural or supernatural, they're more significant. But one of the intrinsic aspects of mortal sin

is a conscious and knowing violation of God's law, which is very bizarre because on one hand, breaking a law is breaking a law, but we do offer different penalties for it. And so it's interesting to think about the, as we joked or the heart posture when committing this. But to your point, I have heard of many stories that people bring in these objects into their house, and I've just collected them, and there's something there. I've been struggling to articulate, theologically, why it's wrong without knowing the nature of the heart towards it. Sure. Well, one analogy that's come up in my mind after listening to the X-Rexfiles,

especially listen to Father Martins about things, is that it seems like with a lot of different practices, it's like opening a spam email and clicking the link that it doesn't always give you a virus, right? Like there could be situations when you're on a certain device where you don't actually get infected on your computer, but there are situations where it could infect your computer and the malware could cause tons of different problems. And so the best practice is to just not open a spam email and not click the link, right? You're not really losing anything by doing that. And so I would say with a lot of this stuff,

when it's something that is sketchy, when it's coming from a sketchy email address, right? Just don't open the email, don't click the link. Even though in some cases you might be fine if you didn't. But for me, yes, like if you're somebody sick, praying to God, also eating healthy, up in your vitamin C intake, all of those things, recognizing that this is God using the world that he made

to hopefully help heal me. So either way, it's coming from God, but maybe in a slightly different way, I would say things like crystals, fortune tellers, and such, we're opening ourselves spiritually to something that may not be God. And maybe God could work through some of those things if he wanted to, but more often than not, it seems like you're opening a gateway for the enemy to step in, what you've opened yourself spiritually to that.

So I'm my concern with the crystal specifically that when you're spiritually opening yourself to something that you know is not God, that's when you've really opened the door for something from the enemy. And it's interesting too because I have someone who's like in the past have been probably a little too obsessed with health stuff. And it's tough because there's a balance there. I've often wondered like in my deepest Whole Foods days of like panicking about organic or free range or whatever. I was like if I put as much thought and effort into my spiritual formation as I do into what goes into my refrigerator, it's made not the craziest thing. But like there's a lie that if I just do everything right, I can circumvent all illness and live forever that I maybe am buying.

And I'm curious, is that a temptation we can fall into? Is this myth that we are in control of everything if we just do all the right things? Totally. I mean, I think that's very well said that the temptation is toward power and control. Even like the temptations of Jesus, we see that from the enemy, right? It's this temptation to control, to rule. And that can be something for all of us that we've considered every single factor. And now we have control over the outcome, which obviously leaves out providence and what God is working.

So I think to your point, even things like health, fitness, your work life, family life, having children right now, like even right now with some of the IVF stuff, people wanting to control the eye color of their child and such. I think this desire to control completely is, in some ways, the original sin. To want to have complete knowledge myself of good and evil and to choose it myself is going to take us down a really dangerous path. Well, the irony, too, is I've looked back at times when I'm, like, most in control, it usually doesn't lead to my ultimate contentment. I'm actually much happier generally when I let go and I'm not. That is like this foundational mystery to me, how I spend so much time striving

after things that I experientially know don't lead to my ultimate contentment. They lead to my temporal and transient contentment. And I would say that's my battle is with pizza. For example, it has enormous transient benefits and contentment. But long term, I can assure you that pizza is not led to my contentment. Especially when it's pineapple pizza. I love pineapple pizza. I love, do you not like pineapple pizza? It's okay. It's okay. The church fathers are silent on the issue, so we can only infer. Right. What's going on here?

We have to launch a study. Father, let me ask you this. What does spiritual warfare looking like for particularly the younger generation in your ministry? So obviously the Catholic tradition that you subscribe to is that we have multiple enemies. We've got the world. And so basically the orchestrational pattern of history is against us. You mentioned a hitman going after your father. Secondly, you've got your own just bad decisions as a human, plenty of those.

So we're not sure of that. And then just to top it off, there may be a spiritual force, aka Lucifer, that is also a hierarchical army that is a third of the fallen angels attacking us as well. So how is that battle unfolding with the people that you're ministering to? What's going on and where is he winning? And where do you see victories? Yeah, so I think with the young people, a big thing, it's no secret as pornography. I mean, it is giving people such access to evil in so many different ways.

And I think that is having just huge effects on people's spiritual lives, the moral lives, obviously, but also their ability to relate, to connect, to see what a healthy relationship looks like. You know, for us, the whole incarnation is assigned to us that what happens with the body matters. Jesus died on the cross with his body, which redeemed us, right, because he was God. And for all of us, I think young people are losing an awareness of what happens. with our bodies, that that has a huge effect on what happens with our souls and our lives play out. And so pornography is a huge thing. I know you guys have done some work with that on the podcast about how impurity can lead to very real possession and obsession in a lot of cases. So that's a

huge thing. And I think that has a lot of ancillary kind of issues that come out with divergent behaviors. So I think that's a real challenge for the young people. Somebody was just recently telling me about this book. Gosh, I wish I remember the name right now. But apparently it's like a children's book, but it's basically just the occult, essentially, is what I've heard, and it's fairly getting very popular, and a lot of the kids are reading and that kind of stuff. I'm off to look up the name for that. So I think we're seeing it in a lot of different areas. I'm hopeful, as you're paying that there certainly is a lot against us, but I do know Christ will prevail, but we definitely have our work cut out for us. So Satan is known as the Father of Lies. What are the main lies

you think that go by generation, and then maybe some of the lies that yourself get thrown at you, as a priest to have to battle because I think for many of us, right, praise God, most of us will not be crawling up the ceiling like the ties that bind. And if you are, there's a clear solution for that. But for most of us, it's a lie from the beginning, right, that we bought into. And now every day it's a battle to choose like God's truth or the lies that are constantly thrown at us. And what do you see right now with like the different generations and yourself?

That's a fantastic question. Okay, so thinking on the spot, the older generation, I think one of the last, lies is that I don't have much to offer. I think that's a big thing with the older generation. I'll hear that from people to say, well, I haven't done anything wrong because I can't really do anything. And I would say, no, if you're made in the image of the likes of God, baptized, priest, prophet king, not only can you do something, but something is being expected of you. That like the Lord is going to want to give an account, not just of your first 70 years, but of your last 20 and your last 15 and your last 30. So I think the older generation can sometimes give in to that lie.

they don't have much left to offer, which can lead to a lack of self-worth, which I think can make people, frankly, very sad. And so I think them to know, like, they still have a lot to offer society in their wisdom, in their prayer, in their presence, in their witness, that would be my main encouragement. I think with maybe, let's say, middle-aged generation, what I sometimes see is a lie that in some ways they need to be emotionally invested in things that they don't have control over, especially with things like the election and such. Right. People can experience a lot of emotions about things that may objectively be right and wrong and things that are important, but things that they really cannot control what so-and-so is doing

over here with this, what so-and-so said, I can't believe this happened. Well, okay, don't let the devil eat up all of your energy with things that you really aren't affecting at all to the neglect of using your energy on the things that you have complete control over, like your moral life and your prayer life and your marriage and your kids and your workplace, don't let the devil distract you from the things you really need to be focusing your energy on. So I would take that's kind of the middle-aged generation. I think maybe my generation, I think sometimes the temptation can be happy when I get here.

I think that can sometimes, like a lack of contentment and gratefulness in terms of where we are. Like you mentioned earlier, to get married, to get this job, to get this level of physical fitness or whatever, and to not be grateful for what we have in the moment, to live in the present. I think for priests, man, the life and the devil can be that maybe like Jesus isn't enough for you, I think. I would think you'd be like, you're missing out, right? Like, hey, look at all the fun, all the culture, satisfaction. This seems to be the big one against, I think, people in religious life, right? is you're missing out man yeah and that's not at all the reality i have maybe the most full life of anyone i know in terms of what my schedule looks like and what i get to do like it is deeply beautiful but i think if you're not careful yeah that totally that temptation of god's not really enough for

you you need something else can be a real problem and then i think like i said for the young people i think it it can sometimes be a lack of not thinking that they are cared about and not them not caring enough that they are cared about i think that tends to be what i I see, and that obviously is going to lead to, like, a hopelessness. I was thinking, people still talk about, like, manifesting. Like, oh, I manifested that, right? Like, in other words, like, I hope that would happen. I spoke that to the universe, and then the universe gave it to me. I manifested in some way. And I was thinking, recently, like, the only other time that we use the word manifest is, like, when a possessed person is showing that they have a demon in them, right? Like,

they're manifesting something demonic. And so I think it's maybe no coincidence. that the young people these days often use that word manifest. I'm speaking this into existence. And it's like, well, who do you think is at play when you're manifesting something? I think that can be really dangerous. No offense to our aviation pilots who have a manifest on their ship or their plane or their ship as well. No offense to them, yes. That's right.

And my friends at the manifesto agency, so Dave, Tim, no knock against you as well. No, that's really good. Actually, the older generation, that really resonates. My grandmother was in a retirement home and it was a nice one. We'd visit her a lot, but you see all these people who are just in front of a TV at three o'clock in the afternoon with no one to visit them. I mean, it's just so lonely. And I thought, you know, there's an old saying, we're still breathing. God's not done with you and he's got a plan for you.

And sometimes it's harder to discern because you're like, what are you doing? But you're right. Like, if we are vessels and we are conduits of the Holy Spirit, then we know God actually is quite particular. In fact, if you have all the credentials, he's less likely to use you. It seems that he likes to pick people that don't violate all the rules. and someone who's just middle of nowhere, whatever, Father Martin says that the wrath of God is stayed by sweet, righteous old ladies praying away, and you just don't know your impact that they can have. So you're right, if you're breathing, you could be praying, discipling. And it's funny

you said that because at a conference, I was just at one of the men at our men's luncheon said that they were talking about the framework like warrior king's sage in the different stages that a man goes through in this framework and said a lot of kings are reluctant to give up and let go of the become sages. And a lot of people don't seek out sages anymore and recognize our culture so idolizes youth instead of saying, look, like this guy who's in his mid-80s has seen so much, right? Like our cultures do a really good job of like honoring that wisdom and sageness. So he said there was a dearth of that and sages whisper into the king's ear and that there's such a necessity to rule if you're going to be a king and rule, you have to have great wisdom. And so it's an encouragement

to do that. Totally. Yeah. You know, one other thing I'll say, maybe the The biggest lie I see in all my ministry, all the ages, just five years into priesthood, I think the thing that the devil gets most able to believe is that if God really loves you and God is really good, then you will never have to suffer at all. I see that, man. I see that so much that, oh yeah, God is good, totally. God loves you 100%. So you won't have to suffer.

And what is he doing? he's setting people up for like a serious crisis of faith because they're going to suffer we're all going to suffer a ton actually and so when people suffer i see it all the time as a priest everything starts to crumble because they're like god must not be good god must not love me maybe god doesn't even exist because i did something wrong right or i'm like i'm not on the path sure oh yeah i failed in some way right like how did god let me do that and now i'm suffering because of it or whatever. So I see that so much. And it's so tricky. It's so like the devil because so much of scripture, if you read it a certain way, can lend itself toward that. So it's not a totally off

the wall lie, but it's super, super damaging. And I actually heard a really cool framework from an orthodox bishop the other day. He said that when a scientist is running an experiment, and they have an hypothesis, and they set up all the variables, and then they do the experiment, and they get some kind of conclusion that is not what they expected. They don't quit science and decide that the fabric of reality is unstable and throw in the towel.

Instead, they go, oh, that is not what I expected. That's super interesting. There's something to learn here. Clearly, my framework was limited. This is falling out on my framework, which means I need to adjust my framework because I know reality is stable.

I know the physical world, has certain properties. I need to figure out what's going on here to discover something new. And he was saying that so many of us, as we move through our spiritual life, we have, God is good, God loves me, we get a result than we did not expect,

like some kind of suffering or loss or pain, then we just give up on the whole thing completely and we're away from the church for 20 years because something happened. And he said, instead of doing that, what we need to do is say, okay, God loves me, God is good. I got a result I didn't expect.

Well, I know God loves me and God is good, which means there must be something going out. going on here. Like there must be something here for me to learn. And this can be a moment of wonder for me to adjust my framework within what I know is now possible as opposed to a moment of crisis and breakdown. So I've been really trying to, with my congregation, really trying to preach that and reform around that to say, hey, these are moments where we can actually say, hey, we've got some wonder here, not what we expected, but that means there's something really beautiful here to learn about who God is. Amen.

someone who has been in some more charismatic traditions, which kind of bend a little bit more prosperity gospel. It's funny because a lot of these lies are not, they're based on some truth, right? I read the Psalms and I read the Old Testament and I go, God's pretty clear. Like, if you just do what I say, things will go well with you, right? And you have one bad thing after another, just like royally mess up and the people suffer for it. And so is that a promise that is extended to it? I mean, you read the Psalms and I have friends who've really struggled in their faith and say, hey, look, I read this. Like, I've never seen the righteous go hungry.

I'm like, pretty sure famines have wiped out millions of people, right? How do I battle test this? On the other hand, we go New Testament, right? And I know it's very clear from Scripture, at least in the New Testament, like God's primary concern is not my temporal satisfaction, but eternally molding me into someone that can be live and be reconciled to him eternally. But also, Jesus is like 11 of his 12 disciples. You either martyred, like 90% are martyred and one is the best case is you're exiled.

on an island. And so it's like, oh, how do I ignore that when everyone close to Christ dies pretty terribly? And early Christian it was brought. So how do you wrestle through this like clear covenantal promise? And I know that was for Israel. But still it's like, it seems God's character is like, follow me. And it will be amazing. And Christ's like, follow me. And you will face many trials in this world. Yeah. You know, the way I always look at it is certainly there are individuals involved, real individuals involved in salvation history. But in some sense, a lot of the times in Scripture, God speaks of his people as kind of in a personified way. And I do think in some ways, God with his people, with the body of Christ, is raising us and

revealing things to us as we can receive it. So, you know, in the Old Testament, it was like a child. And he was giving them very clear directives like you give a child. Don't touch that. Don't do that. This will happen if you do this. These are the punishments. it's very clear. But also a child is super, super protected by their parents from anything that's super challenging in most cases, right? Like they really protect them, keep them off out of the street, off the road, all those kinds of things. But as a child gets older, things that would have made sense to a child, I sound a little bit different as an adult. And things that you would say to an adult, you would not say to a child. Do you want to tell a seven-year-old, you need to go get a job? You need to get a job so you can help support the family.

That doesn't make sense to a seven-year-old, but it makes sense to an 18-year-old. And so I think the Lord is revealing himself as his people mature as Revelation itself comes together. And so I think in that light, it actually makes a lot of sense that we've been given a lot more than the people of the Old Testament have in a context that makes more sense. You know, in some ways, there's something else that can be expected of us. Well, as we land our plane here, Father, a final word and encouragement, if you're going through a hard time, if you are questioning what's going on.

If you're in the throw of something, you don't know if it's spiritual, bad luck, whatever, but if you're just doubting God's goodness right now, from the man who has given his entire life to this and his self-sated mission is to save souls. What is your encouragement for anyone in the thick of it right now? I'll say this. I was talking to a buddy mine this morning, and he's a CEO of a company. He's run a couple of different companies, and he was telling me this past weekend

that he had a lot of stress about a deal that they were putting together, and he was really concerned about it, and he was stressing about it all weekend, and he went to pray this morning with the mass readings, and he said, Lord, just give me something that's going to connect with my situation. Give me something. And he went and looked at the first reading for our Mass, and it's the story of Job losing everything. That's the first reading.

And they said, okay, well, this is relevant, but maybe not what I was going for. Anything else, Father. Yeah, anything else. Let's look at the gospel instead. But at the end of it, he said, Job proclaims the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

There was a man who came to Mother Teresa, and he said, Mother, please pray that I will have certainty about what I should do. please pray that I have certainty. And Mother Teresa apparently said, no, I will not pray that you have certainty. I'm going to pray that you trust God. And I think ultimately that's what discipleship is, not having certainty about who you are and what you're going to do

and everything that you can be in control of. Ultimately, discipleship is trusting God. That matter what happens, he's going to take care of it, and he knows what he's doing. So whatever situation you were in today, whoever's listening, to be able to say with Job, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Amen. And for those scared of Job, just remember, he blessed the latter days even more than the former. Amen. Father David Michael Moses, thank you so much.

Where can people connect with you, follow you? Obviously, you want them to follow Jesus, but it will also follow you as well. So where can we find more, Father Moses? Yeah. Pretty much most social media platforms We've got some content on there.

Instagram is the one we probably use the most, but also you can subscribe to the YouTube channel, TikTok if you're on that, Facebook, all those things, sign up for the newsletter. We've got some music online. People can also check out. But it has just been an honor to be on here, honor to talk with you.

Thank you so much for all the good work that you're doing. Absolutely. And you have a podcast coming. By the time this comes out, you will have a podcast out. That's true. That's true. Talk about your podcasts.

Yeah, we got some guests lined up. Should be a lot of fun. They can just find out of Father David and Michael Moses on wherever they can get their podcast. So we're excited to get that going. Father, thank you so much for being here. And as we see on the show, stay demon free. Stay demon free.