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St. Moses the Black — He Led 75 Killers. The Catholic Church Calls Him a Saint. · Everyday Saints: A Catholic Podcast

• 0:00
  A man is standing over a body he just killed, who was moments before kneeling at his feet.
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  His name is Moses. He is the most feared criminal in the Nile Valley, leader of a gang of 75
• 0:12
  violent men. But this is not the last time someone will kneel at his feet. By the end of his life,
• 0:20
  this same man, murderer, slave, bandit, wanted by every authority in Egypt, will be one of
• 0:28
  the most gentle, wise, and beloved figures in the history of Christianity. Bishops will travel
• 0:34
  days to sit with him. Thousands will seek his counsel. He will choose to die rather than
• 0:40
  raise his hand in violence ever again. Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday
• 0:46
  Saints. This is the story of St. Moses the Black.
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  We are in Egypt, around 330 AD. The Roman Empire is cracking at the edges. Christianity just
• 1:09
  became legal. Constantine converted in 312. And out in the Egyptian desert, something strange
• 1:17
  is happening. People are walking away from civilization entirely, moving into the wilderness to pray,
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  to fast, to build a new kind of life. the desert fathers and mothers. We will come back to
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  them. But first, Moses. Moses was a slave, large, physically imposing in a way most people remembered.
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  Strong enough that even among men who valued strength, he stood out. And by every account,
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  he was completely unmanageable. He stole from his master. He was suspected of murder. Eventually,
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  His master had had enough and cast him out. Moses did what a large, strong, violent man
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  with no prospects did in 4th century Egypt. He found a gang. Not a small one. Moses joined
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  a band of outlaws roaming the Nile Valley, and by sheer force of physical presence and an
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  absolute fearlessness, he rose to lead it. 75 men. Some sources say more. robbing travelers,
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  terrorizing villages, killing when necessary and sometimes when not. The mere mention of
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  his name made communities bar their doors. One story from this period tells you everything.
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  A barking dog interrupted one of his raids, alerting the household before he could finish
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  the robbery. Moses, well, he was furious. He swore revenge on the dog's owner. He came back
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  the next night, sword in his mouth. swam the Nile in the dark, found the owner's hut. The
• 3:00
  owner had been warned again and hidden. So Moses killed four of the man's sheep instead, swam
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  back across the river with them and sold their fleeces for wine. That is who Moses was. A
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  man who swam a river at night with his sword in his mouth to settle a score just over a
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  barking dog. And then one night, Running from local authorities after some especially dangerous
• 3:28
  period of criminal work, Moses found himself in the desert and stumbled into something he
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  had not expected. The desert of Scythes, Wadi el-Natran in northwestern Egypt, was, by the
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  late fourth century, home to one of the most unusual communities in the ancient world.
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  Men who had walked away from cities and careers and families and comfort every ordinary ambition
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  to live in the wilderness, praying, fasting, working toward a kind of interior purification
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  most of the world considered either admirable or plain out insane. Moses arrived not as a
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  seeker, no, he arrived as a fugitive running from something, stumbling onto something else
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  entirely. What he found stopped him. These men had nothing, less than nothing. No weapons,
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  no wealth worth stealing, no power a Roman official would recognize. They almost owned nothing
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  and wanted nothing more. And they were at peace in a way Moses had never encountered in a human
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  being. Picture that contrast. A man whose entire life was organized around taking things by
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  force, food, money, safety, dominance. standing in a community where none of those things existed.
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  And the people were more settled, more genuinely content than anyone he had ever robbed or terrorized.
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  The abbot was a man named Isiador. When Moses appeared, large, dark, dangerous, a man whose
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  reputation preceded him, Isiador did not run. He did not call for help. He showed Moses hospitality.
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  fed him, talked to him. Moses told him he wanted to know the God these monks had found. He refused
• 5:32
  to leave until they accepted him. Isiah door accepted him. It was not a smooth transition.
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  And here's the part of the Moses's story that I find most honest, most relatable, and most
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  worth slowing down for. He did not walk into that desert and immediately become a saint.
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  No, he walked in carrying everything that he had ever been. The process of becoming someone
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  different was slow, difficult, and occasionally embarrassing. He struggled with violence. As
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  old habits, they do not disappear because you've just merely decided to change. One night robbers
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  broke into Moses's living cell. men much like what he himself had been. Moses overpowered
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  all four of them and then, this detail is so human, he dragged them to the chapel where
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  the other monks were praying and dumped them in front of the community. He said, I do not
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  think it is Christian to hurt them, but I did not know what else to do with them. The robbers
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  confronted with overwhelming physical force and complete moral bewilderment, converted
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  on the spot and joined the monastery. He struggled with discouragement. He became convinced that
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  he was not making progress fast enough, that his past was too heavy, his sins too many,
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  his character too damaged. He went to Abbot Isador in despair. Isador took him to the roof
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  before dawn. They sat together and watched the first light of sunrise over the desert, darkness
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  replaced by light, one degree at a time. Isiador said, and I quote, only slowly do the rays
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  of the sun drive away the night and usher in a new day. And thus, only slowly does one
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  become a perfect contemplative. Moses sat with that. and kept going. He struggled with lust.
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  The Desert Fathers were remarkably honest about this. The absence of external distractions
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  did not make internal temptations just disappear. It often made them louder. Moses, who had lived
• 8:05
  by appetite his entire life, found the appetites did not simply stop because he had decided
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  they should. He prayed. He fasted. He worked harder physically to exhaust himself. And gradually,
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  over the years, the struggle quieted. And he struggled with pride in a way he could never
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  have predicted. The pride of a man once feared everywhere, now overlooked and dismissed. In
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  the desert community, former Roman noblemen sat at the feet of illiterate peasant farmers.
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  Educated philosophers called unlettered monks their spiritual fathers. And Moses, a large,
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  dark-skinned African man of slave origin and criminal history, was, by every social measure
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  of the Roman world, at the very bottom. When he was being considered for ordination as a
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  priest, the archbishop secretly instructed his clergy to test Moses' humility. They drove
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  him from the sanctuary with racial insults. Go away Ethiopian, you don't belong here. Moses
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  walked out without a word. And when they called him back and ordained him, the archbishop said,
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  Moses, now you are entirely white. He had passed a test most men of his physical capability
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  and personal history could not have passed. Not because he had no dignity, because he understood
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  something about where dignity actually came from. Now Moses by his 70s was one of the most
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  respected figures in the desert Christian world. Around him were approximately 75 disciples,
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  the same number of men he had once led in crime. Now that symmetry is not lost on anyone who
• 10:04
  knows his story. Ordained at 60, he continued teaching, counseling, praying for 15 more years.
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  Then word came, Raiders were heading up towards the monastery at Scythes. The brothers, well,
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  they wanted to take up weapons and fight, but Moses, no, he forbade it. He told them to flee
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  if they wanted to live. He would not run and he would not fight. He had lived by the sword
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  for the first half of his life. And he had said more than once that a violent death was probably
• 10:41
  the appropriate end for a man of his history. He quoted the scripture he knew so well. All
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  who take the sword will perish by the sword. Seven brothers chose to stay with him. The
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  raiders arrived. Moses and his seven companions stood and greeted them without weapons, without
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  defense, without resistance. They were all martyred, all eight of them. One brother had
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  hid and watched. He said afterward that he saw a light descend from heaven with crowns, one
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  for each of them. Moses was 75 years old. He had spent roughly the first 40 years of his
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  life as a slave, a murderer, and a bandit. He had spent the last 35 years becoming one of
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  the most gentle, wise, and beloved men in the desert. All right, back on the porch. The thing
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  I keep returning to with Moses is that sentence he said to the monks after dragging the robbers
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  into the chapel. Do you remember it? I do not think it is Christian to hurt them, but I did
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  not know what else to do with them. That is not the sentence of a man who has achieved
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  holiness. That is the sentence of a man in the middle of becoming it. Still carrying his old
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  reflexes, still uncertain what the new ones should be, and doing the best he can with what
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  he has so far. And I think that's exactly where most of us actually live. Not at the beginning,
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  not at the end. but somewhere in the middle of a process. We are not sure is working fast
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  enough. Remember, Moses was discouraged. He went to his abbot, convinced he was failing,
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  and Isiah took him to watch a sunrise. Slowly, that's the word, only slowly do the rays of
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  the sun drive away the night. We want transformation to be sudden. know I do. The Damascus Road,
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  the blinding light, the voice, the immediate reversal from the last episode. And sometimes
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  it is. But more often, it is a sunrise. Gradual, imperceptible moment to moment. Real only when
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  you look back from a distance and realize the dark is gone. Moses the murderer became Moses
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  the martyr. Not in a single moment. Over 35 years of slow, difficult, and occasionally
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  embarrassing work. Of dragging robbers into chapels because he did not know what else to
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  do with them. Sitting on rooftops watching the light come in. I'll be honest, I've been sitting
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  with this myself since I started researching Moses. There are areas of my own life where
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  I've been discouraged for exactly this reason. Where the progress feels invisible because
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  I'm measuring against how far I still have to go rather than turning around and looking at
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  how far I've already come. Moses' story is a rebuke to that kind of accounting and not a
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  gentle one, a firm one. So here's the practical challenge this week. Think about the area of
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  your life where you are most discouraged about your lack of progress. The habit that won't
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  break, the pattern that keeps returning, the version of yourself you thought you'd had left
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  behind by now. And ask yourself honestly, Are you judging your sunrise by the darkness still
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  there or by how much light has already come in? Because those are two completely different
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  measurements of the same morning. And now it is time for the closing prayer. Lord, thank
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  you for Moses. Thank you for a man who swam a river at night with a sword in his teeth
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  and ended up dying with his hands open greeting the people who came to kill him. For everyone
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  listening who is in the middle of their slow transformation, who is discouraged because
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  they are not further along than they are, remind them of the sunrise. Remind them that slow
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  is not the same as stopped, that the light already coming in is real, even if the dark is still
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  visible. on the horizon. And for anyone who feels their past is too heavy, their history
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  too damaged, their sins too many to be genuinely transformed, give them Moses, a man who led
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  75 criminals and ended up shepherding 75 monks. Same number, but completely different direction.
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  We love you, even in the slow mornings. Amen. As always, one more thing before we go. Moses
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  the Black is the patron saint of African Americans, which makes perfect sense for a man who was
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  himself enslaved, who bore racial contempt throughout his Christian life, and who responded to every
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  instance of it with a dignity that came from somewhere his tormentors could not reach. He
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  is also venerated as a patron against temptation, for obvious reasons. and as a model of repentance
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  for anyone who believes their past disqualifies them from a future. There is a parish in Detroit,
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  St. Moses the Black Catholic Church, serving the African American Catholic community since
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  the 1990s, one of the few parishes in the United States named after him. If you're ever
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  in Detroit, it's worth knowing it exists. His relics are in the monastery of the Virgin Mary
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  of Peromios in Egypt's Wadi al-Natran, the same desert where he lived, prayed, and died 17
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  centuries ago. People still go there, still pray there, still sit in the desert where the
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  light comes in slowly and ask for what Moses found. His feast day is August 28th. The man
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  who swam a river with a sword in his teeth to settle a score over a barking dog. Patron of
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  the gentle. Martyr of the desert. Well, that is episode 10 of Everyday Saints. If Moses'
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  story moves you, share it. One person, someone who needs to hear that slow is not the same
• 17:56
  as stopped. Leave a review if you have a minute. It genuinely helps more people find the show.
• 18:03
  And if you've noticed any some switching of even changes to the audio as well as the formatting
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  of the show and the length of the show, I'm working some things out, trying some things,
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  so just bear with me for a couple weeks. But next week, a name you absolutely know, a story
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  almost nobody actually knows, and a moment of grace so unexpected it's been argued about
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  by scholars for 2,000 years. I'm John O'Connor. Thanks for sitting on the porch with me and
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  I will see you next week.