St. Moses the Black and Prison Ministry

Below is a short article that I wrote for our parish’s newsletter.

“Moses the Black, sometimes called the Ethiopian, was a slave of a government official in Egypt who dismissed him for theft and suspected murder. He became the leader of a gang of bandits who roamed the Nile Valley, spreading terror and violence. He was a large, imposing figure. On one occasion, a barking dog prevented Moses from carrying out a robbery, so he swore vengeance on the owner. With weapons in his mouth, Moses swam the river toward the owner’s hut. The owner, again alerted, hid, and the frustrated Moses took some of his sheep to the slaughter. Attempting to hide from local authorities, he took shelter with some monks in a colony in the desert of Scete, near Alexandria. The dedication of their lives, as well as their peace and contentment, influenced Moses deeply. He soon gave up his old way of life and joined the monastic community at Scete.” – all quotes © 2022 Eternal Word Television Network, Inc. (EWTN).

              I have been involved with a prison ministry for the last three months. Their goal is to work with the judicial system to interpose themselves between first-time offenders and a prison sentence. Judges are asked to send selected first-time offenders to a halfway house. They spend three months learning about behavioral and thinking changes at that halfway house. They also can apply for jobs in the community and learn practical skills such as financial management, credit management, and self-control. And, yes, they hear about God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

              But there are no angels. Some will sneak out when they are not supposed to leave the premises. Rarely one of them will bring drugs into the halfway house, etc. This misbehavior does not mean that they are not serious, but rather that the change process is more complicated than most realize. Of St. Moses the Black, it is said that “he had a rather difficult time adjusting to regular monastic discipline.”

In the same way, those who come to the halfway house are accustomed to a different way of living. “Attacked by a group of robbers in his desert cell, Moses fought back, overpowered the intruders, and dragged them to the chapel where the other monks were at prayer. He told the brothers that he didn’t think it Christian to hurt the robbers and asked what he should do with them.” Fortunately, the abbot told him that this was not how monks handled physical conflict. The robbers were untied and let go. Eventually, they became monks in their own right.

              As a result of his experiences with his brother monks, Moses changed. He became a leader in the community, eventually becoming the abbot after the previous abbot had died. Once, before becoming abbot, he was called to the trial of a monk who had committed a fault. The story reads, “When a brother committed a fault and Moses was invited to a meeting to discuss an appropriate penance, Moses refused to attend. When called to the meeting, Moses took a leaking jug filled with water and carried it on his shoulder. Another version of the story has him carrying a basket filled with sand. When he arrived at the meeting, the others asked why he was carrying the jug. He replied, ‘My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another.’ On hearing this, the assembled brothers forgave the erring monk.”

              As Orthodox believers, we are called to be people who grow into the likeness of God. We are called to theosis, to the becoming little gods in the sense of our moral behavior. We sometimes forget that this is a process during which time we will inevitably fall and sin. There is a reason why the Church developed the Sacrament of Confession. The Sacrament comes from the realization that the growth process is slow and that we still struggle with sin during that process. Confession opens us to the healing energies of God and to an internal change that will lead to an external behavioral change.

              We are not always thankful for God’s forgiveness. Occasionally, we are willing to give ourselves grace while failing to give others the same grace. To put it bluntly, we will make excuses as to why our sin is not so crucial while looking down on those who have committed what we see as a worse sin. We will see our families destroyed by divorce or other faults while considering ourselves better than the man who robbed. We will say that we were never arrested while avoiding the damage we may have wreaked on our spouse and children. We will see the splinter in the eye of those detained while never seeing the log in our eye (Mat. 7:1-5).

              Working with those young men who had been diverted into a halfway house program taught me much. My way of evaluating others needs to change. My attitude needs to become “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” while my prayer needs to be one of always asking the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy on my soul. I have also learned yet again that I must learn to allow for the fact that Christians may waver back and forth between sin and salvation. This wavering does not mean that they are not committed but are struggling on the path to salvation.

              And so I turn to you who are reading this article. How do you regard other sinners? Do you see yourselves as better than them? Would you accept the homeless, the unemployed, the former convicts, the handicapped, and the immigrant into our parish? Or would you see our parish as an inappropriate venue for those working out their salvation with fear and trembling? Are we a place where saints gather or where saints and sinners come to learn more about God? Like the abbott in the story of St. Moses the Black, are you prepared to accept those who may have had a more difficult road to salvation than you? May God have mercy on us!