By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
Father William Mobley is a man of many interests. From organic chemistry to mystery novels to what he calls his “grandmother hobbies”—cooking, baking, sewing, and crochet—he’s managed to collect quite the array of passions over the years.
While many of these hobbies could capture his interest for a time, even a long time, nothing could capture his heart quite like God did.
“He was interested in all kinds of things,” Father Mobley’s father, David, said. “But then there was theology and faith and God. That’s something that can hold his interest for the rest of eternity.”
On May 18, alongside three other men at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco, Father Mobley entered into the priesthood, vowing to dedicate himself to God and His Church. Now, as a new priest, Father Mobley has the opportunity to put his active mind and curious heart at the service of his priestly call.
‘A priest at heart’
Father Mobley’s passion for the faith first sparked in high school.
Before high school, Father Mobley was a rather lukewarm Catholic. Although his family would attend Mass on Sundays and pray before meals and bed, “that was about the extent of the faith,” he confessed.
This spiritual tepidity changed, however, when he started attending St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Community’s youth group. As a ninth-grade student at McKinney High School, he joined the group simply to fulfill confirmation requirements; but soon, he and his older sister Rachel, who had joined the group earlier, found that they were deeply impacted by the faith instruction they received.
“Starting with my sister and then myself, we were like, ‘Oh, this stuff is really interesting,’” Father Mobley recalled. “It was this slow movement in stages that you almost don’t even recognize what’s happening… My parents started taking more ownership of their faith at the time, and so I started growing in my faith… and we became a super Catholic family.”
After graduating high school in 2013, Father Mobley began attending Trinity University in San Antonio. The faith that had grown roots in high school began to blossom in college. Father Mobley quickly became involved with a Catholic student group on campus.
“Every break, we’d come back, and we would just talk more and more about not just what we’re doing but truly how we were doing, who we saw the Lord as, and what He was doing in our lives,” said TJ Poynor, a friend of Father Mobley’s since high school. “I saw this friendship transform into something much more beautiful, something that we read about in Scripture. I saw him falling completely in love with the Lord.”
This growth culminated in the SEEK conference in San Antonio, January 2017, during Father Mobley’s last semester at college.
“A lot of the speakers tangentially spoke about vocation and praying about vocation,” Father Mobley said, recalling the conference. “It kept coming up again and again—or I kept hearing it, anyway… I kept hearing that I really need to discern my vocation, involve God in those future decisions in my life.”
Father Mobley had a lot to decide. Although he had initially entered college with the intention to study pre-med, he fell in love with organic chemistry and began considering a career as a chemistry professor instead. Now, he was pondering the possibility of becoming a missionary or a seminarian.
Father Mobley began making the daily prayer: “God, what do you want me to do with my life?” He would sit in silence, waiting for a response. “And I got nothing,” he said.
Nonetheless, he began attending Mass daily, frequenting adoration, and reading about the priesthood—all the while, wondering about his future.
“One day, I was minding my own business and writing a letter to a friend… I paused for a moment, and it was in that moment of silence that I heard a voice in my head that said, ‘What if I want you to be a priest?’ And there was a presence to the voice. It wasn’t just a thought I was having,” Father Mobley recalled. “I was totally surprised and taken aback… My response was: If you wanted me to be a priest, then I would. But you said, ‘what if.’ I’m going to need a clearer ‘I want you to be a priest.’ There was something in me that was hesitating.”
Father Mobley wrestled with the idea of becoming a priest for the next month or two. Around April, he received some clarity about his call—thanks to the encouragement of a few “little old ladies.”
“After Mass one day, an older lady came up to me and said, ‘You have a good singing voice. You would make a good priest…About a week later, after Mass, another woman in the parish came up to me and said, ‘You know, you’d make a good priest,’” he remembered. The next week, a homeless woman in the chapel stopped him to deliver the same message. “It was at that point that I knew: Jesus really was asking me to be a priest.”
“The Lord has so many ways of talking to us and giving us guidance,” David said, adding with a laugh, “You’ve got to listen to little old ladies.”
With his next step decided, Father Mobley felt “a mix of fear and joy and peace.” He reached out to a vocations director and informed friends and family of his intention to join the seminary.
“I remember my first reaction was probably something like ‘Praise God!’” Poynor said. “I thought, ‘Let’s go! I’m going to have a best friend that’s a priest!’”
David recalled hearing the big news via a phone call from his son. “When he said that, there were so many things about William that finally made sense in a unified way, in a way that just pulled everything together about him. He’s a priest at heart.”
The privilege of priesthood
In 2017, Father Mobley began his studies at Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving.
“It was actually really amazing to step into this community of 50-60 men in the seminary who are all discerning a call to the priesthood, who are all working toward the same goal of holiness,” Father Mobley said.
After two years, he completed his pre-theology program at Holy Trinity and moved to Washington, D.C. to study at the Theological College.
“The formation process of men in seminary is beautiful—it’s holistic; it’s the whole person. It’s not just learning theology and the sacraments, but they form you in every aspect of being a human being,” David said. “And during that time period, as gentle as he was prior, he became more tolerant, even more level, more open and inviting to his sibling, his parents, and other people.”
Halfway through Father Mobley’s theology studies, from 2021-2022, he returned to Texas to spend his pastoral year at St. Mark the Evangelist in Plano.
“You go back home, and it just feels different to be in a parish in Dallas. It feels like home,” he said, reflecting on his pastoral year. “I got to see what it’s like to actually live the life of a priest for a year, kind of experience that day-to-day life.”
On April 29, 2023, at the National Shrine Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he was ordained a deacon. A year later, on May 18, 2024, he was ordained a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco.
David said he felt “overwhelming joy” that his son had become a priest.
“Seven years ago, we got a phone call; and now here we are,” David said. “His mother and I are in an absolutely privileged position to be parents of a young man who is making incredible sacrifices…I feel privileged that our son will be a priest; and I realize that he’s our priest as a Church, as a people, and everyone is joining us.”
Father Mobley said he is excited to dive into the day-to-day surprises of the priesthood.
“I’m looking forward to the unexpected in ministry,” he said. “Someone after Mass asking, ‘Hey, can we talk?’ and just having a conversation with a parishioner, or running into someone at the grocery store and finding out that their grandma’s sick and going to the hospital—These moments that I wasn’t expecting in ministry.”
“He knows the Lord so well, so deeply—like, not just knowing things about Him, but he knows the Lord so deeply,” Poynor said. “I know him, and I know that he’s a good man; so, he’s going to be a good priest.”
Cutline for featured image: Father William Henry Mobley distributes communion during the celebration of a Mass on May 18 at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco where Father Mobley was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Edward J. Burns. (Ben Torres/Special Contributor)
