ST MOSES, BISHOP - 7 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 7th of February

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINT MOSES, BISHOP 

Saint Moses (Moyses) was a hermit in the region of Rhinocolura in the Egyptian-Syrian borderlands. The warlike tribes of the Saracens lived in the vicinity, without permanent residence. They were mostly pagans and dedicated to the service of the stars (they are said to have worshipped the morning star as the bringer of light). 

THE QUEEN EMBRACED THE FAITH

Under the Emperor Valens (since A.D. 346), they worried the Palestinian and Arab border towns of the Romans, led by their brave Queen Mauvia. The expedition ordered against them ended with the Christianisation of the Saracens, who desired St Moses as bishop. 

THE BISHOP AT ALEXANDRIA

At Alexandria, where his ordination was to take place, Lucius, an Arian, occupied the patriarchal seat at that time. 

ST MOSES REFUSED 

St Moses resolutely refused to receive his ordination from him: "I consider myself," he said, "unworthy of the high priesthood. But if the divine office should nevertheless be entrusted to me, I call on our God, the God of heaven and earth, to witness that Lucius will not lay his hands on me - because they are reddened and stained with the blood of the saints."

Lucius, exasperated about this, cried: "Why, O Moses, do you rashly condemn a man whose faith you do not know? If anyone has given you a wrong opinion of me, hear my statement and believe me more than others."

"SUCH THINGS ARE NOT DONE BY THOSE WHO HAVE TRUE FAITH IN CHRIST"

Moses answered him: "Stop trying to deceive me with illusions. I know your faith very well; the servants of God condemned to the mines, the bishops thrown into exile, the priests and deacons expelled from the Christian lands, some of whom were given up to wild beasts, others to the fire, bear witness to what you believe. Who should I believe more: what I hear from you or what I see from you? This much is certain, that such things are not done by those who have true faith in Christ."

HE HAD NO SPECIFIC SEAT

This solemn protest got through, and St Moses was consecrated by the Catholic bishops he had asked for. Incidentally, he had no specific seat, but stayed here and there and, according to the accounts of the historians Sozomen, Socrates and Nicephorus, brought about numerous conversions. 

NUMEROUS CONVERSIONS

It is not known when exactly he died. Of his successors, only Eustathius (around 457) is known. St Moses, as a Saracen apostle, is in all martyrologies, even in the Roman Martyrology.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints)

ST MOSES' ENTRY IN THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY

"In Egypt, Saint Moses, a venerable bishop, who first led a solitary life in the desert, and being afterwards made bishop, at the request of Mauvia, queen of the Saracens, converted to the faith the greater part of that barbarous people, and, rich in merits, passed peacefully to his reward."