St. Moses the Black — He Led 75 Killers. The Catholic Church Calls Him a Saint.
In this episode of Everyday Saints, a Catholic podcast about the real lives of the saints, host John O'Connor tells the story of St. Moses the Black — a former slave, murderer, and leader of a violent gang of seventy-five men who terrorized the Nile Valley in fourth century Egypt.
He once swam a river at night with a sword in his teeth to settle a score over a barking dog.
He died thirty-five years later with his hands open — greeting the men who came to kill him. Without raising a hand in defense.
What happened in between is one of the most dramatic transformations in the history of the Christian faith.
What you'll hear in this episode:
— A slave who became the most feared criminal in Egypt
— The sword in his teeth and the river he swam to settle a score
— The desert community he stumbled into while running from the law — and why he refused to leave
— Dragging four robbers into a chapel because he didn't know what else to do with them
— The sunrise sermon that changed how he measured his own progress
— The racial contempt he faced — and the dignity he answered it with
— Seventy-five criminals became seventy-five monks. Same number. Completely different direction.
— What his slow transformation means for wherever you are stuck right now
St. Moses the Black is the patron saint of African Americans, of people struggling with temptation, and of anyone who believes their past disqualifies them from a future.
Everyday Saints is a weekly Catholic podcast telling the real, human stories of the saints in plain language — for regular people with real jobs, real doubts, and real lives. No theology degree required.
New episodes every Thursday.
Host: John O'Connor
00:00 - — A Murderer With a Sword in His Teeth: St. Moses the Black
02:53 - — He Swam the Nile at Night to Settle a Score Over a Barking Dog
04:21 - — The Desert Community He Stumbled Into While Running From the Law
06:10 - — Four Robbers, a Chapel, and a Man Who Didn't Know What Else to Do
07:19 - — The Sunrise That Changed How He Measured His Own Progress
09:04 - — "Go Away, Ethiopian" — The Racial Test He Passed Without a Word
11:04 - — Seventy-Five Criminals. Seventy-Five Monks. He Chose to Die Rather Than Fight.
11:33 - — What Moses's Slow Transformation Means for Wherever You're Stuck Today
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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
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violent men. But this is not the last time someone
will kneel at his feet. By the end of his life,
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this same man, murderer, slave, bandit, wanted
by every authority in Egypt, will be one of
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the most gentle, wise, and beloved figures in
the history of Christianity. Bishops will travel
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days to sit with him. Thousands will seek his
counsel. He will choose to die rather than
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raise his hand in violence ever again. Hi, my
name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday
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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
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became legal. Constantine converted in 312.
And out in the Egyptian desert, something strange
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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as stopped. Leave a review if you have a minute.
It genuinely helps more people find the show.
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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.