Does Anyone Pray to Moses? (novena)

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TimothyH

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It struck me the other day that as a mediator of the covenant between Israel and God and as one who was allowed to see God’s back, and one who went up on the mountain and ate and drank with God, that Moses would be a powerful intercessor.

I’m thinking of making a novena to Moses. Is there such a thing?

I’m wondering if anyone prays to Moses for intercession? I’m sure Moses is in Heaven. Is Moses canonized and would it matter if he wasn’t?

What about King David? Or Elijiah? Or Abraham?

-Tim-
 
sniff sniff Do I smell incense? I think we have an Eastern Rite lurking nearby…
 
I don’t understand.

I am sometimes the thurifer when I altar serve and have posted about that. I also just posted in the Eastern Catholic forum about how I sometimes wear a chotki on my left forearm. My question however, was serious and I don’t understand what incense and Eastern Catholic rites have to do with praying to Moses.

Is devotion to Old Testament patriarchs something that Eastern Catholics might be more likely to have?

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Is devotion to Old Testament patriarchs something that Eastern Catholics might be more likely to have?
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Yes. I don’t know why, and there’s no reason why Roman Catholics can’t, but Eastern Catholics are more likely to foster devotion to the Old Testament Patriarchs.
 
L_Marshall said:
Yes. I don’t know why, and there’s no reason why Roman Catholics can’t, but Eastern Catholics are more likely to foster devotion to the Old Testament Patriarchs.
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That is correct. We often bug OT figures; Elijah, most commonly Daniel and the other Jewish youths of the furnace, David, Moses & Aaron when referring to priesthood, Shmuni and her sons (also known on the old Latin calendar as the Maccabean martyrs), the very general term of the “prophets” and the occasional intercessory requests of Phineas, Eleazar, etc.

The fact of the matter is if they pleased God and are in heaven they can be asked for intercessions. The one thing that confuses me though is why I’ve never heard a Latin call, for example, Elijah St. Elijah but it’s common to see in Arabic Mar (St.) Elias, etc. 🤷 I was arguing with a kid once because he insisted Elijah was not a saint so I told him what, he did the will of God as a prophet and then was sent to hell afterwards?
 
As a Jewish Convert I find the whole argument very stupid. The Jewish religion does not believe in Saints and these people i.e. Moses etc. are Jewish and are bound by Jewish law, not Christian law, my friend is Orthodox and has this tendency to put them into the “Saint” mode, before one is declared a Saint in the Catholic Church there are various stages that the person has go through before being declared a Saint, as these people lived pre Christ no authority has the right to declare them a Saint - it would be a bit like say the Baptist Church declaring the Dalai Lama a Saint, ridiculous.

THEY ARE NOT SAINTS but In the Jewish Religion regarded as" Righteous and doing the Will of God." and nothing more. Please keep things in context, the Jewish people would be deeply offended if you tried that one on them as they would feel you were trying to Christianise them, you have to respect other religions and not put your interpretation on another religion.
 
Well how are we, mere humans (darkened intellect and all), to determine where Elijah is. He could be in purgatory as well. But it is hard for us to say, because I would heartily say we do not know where all the rest of the people before death was redeemed. But we and easterns are both catholic, so keep it that way and don’t create for yourself a false dichotomy! By the by, I am a roman catholic and i happen to love the Melkite Rite Catholic Mass!🙂
 
LarsonPio said:
But we and easterns are both catholic, so keep it that way and don’t create for yourself a false dichotomy! By the by, I am a roman catholic and i happen to love the Melkite Rite Catholic Mass!🙂
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I don’t know if that was directed at me but if you do love the Melkite divine liturgy (the Melkite Church uses the Melkite rite, which is Catholic just a clarification of technical terminology ;)) it might be of interest to know that in their 40 day liturgy they pray that the deceased may rest in the bosom of Abraham. Now unless Melkites are sadistic and pray that someone rest in purgatory (or dare I say hell) that would mean Abraham is in heaven. As a prelate for the Byzantines in South America Pope Francis would’ve done countless 40 day liturgies, not to mention the Melkite liturgy being an approved liturgy of the Catholic Church. The logical conclusion is anyone who says OT figures are not saints who should be venerated are accusing Pope Francis and the Catholic Church itself of being heterodox.
 
Celtic_Maiden said:
The Jewish religion does not believe in Saints and these people i.e. Moses etc. are Jewish and are bound by Jewish law, not Christian law, my friend is Orthodox and has this tendency to put them into the “Saint” mode, before one is declared a Saint in the Catholic Church there are various stages that the person has go through before being declared a Saint, as these people lived pre Christ no authority has the right to declare them a Saint - it would be a bit like say the Baptist Church declaring the Dalai Lama a Saint, ridiculous.
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We should recognize that a saint is anyone who is in heaven, both those recognized by the Church through the process of canonization, and those who are not recognized formally. We believe that Christ brought all who were in the Bosom of Abraham (patriarchs and prophets included) into heaven when he harrowed hell. This happened when he “descended to the dead.” It is often portrayed in iconography, you can see the patriarchs on the left:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
MorEphrem said:
That is correct. We often bug OT figures; Elijah, most commonly Daniel and the other Jewish youths of the furnace, David, Moses & Aaron when referring to priesthood, Shmuni and her sons (also known on the old Latin calendar as the Maccabean martyrs), the very general term of the “prophets” and the occasional intercessory requests of Phineas, Eleazar, etc.

The fact of the matter is if they pleased God and are in heaven they can be asked for intercessions. The one thing that confuses me though is why I’ve never heard a Latin call, for example, Elijah St. Elijah but it’s common to see in Arabic Mar (St.) Elias, etc. 🤷 I was arguing with a kid once because he insisted Elijah was not a saint so I told him what, he did the will of God as a prophet and then was sent to hell afterwards?
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It’s interesting that you chose the example of Elijah since this the OT figure I have most often seen called a saint (St. Elijah) in Western Catholic sources, generally in a context having to do with the Carmelites.

Granted it is not a very common thing but that may be largely a mere convention, like how we only occasionally call the mother of Jesus “St. Mary”, but in no way mean to imply by that that there is any question as to whether she is a saint.
 
Celtic_Maiden said:
As a Jewish Convert I find the whole argument very stupid. The Jewish religion does not believe in Saints and these people i.e. Moses etc. are Jewish and are bound by Jewish law, not Christian law, my friend is Orthodox and has this tendency to put them into the “Saint” mode, before one is declared a Saint in the Catholic Church there are various stages that the person has go through before being declared a Saint, as these people lived pre Christ no authority has the right to declare them a Saint - it would be a bit like say the Baptist Church declaring the Dalai Lama a Saint, ridiculous.

THEY ARE NOT SAINTS but In the Jewish Religion regarded as" Righteous and doing the Will of God." and nothing more. Please keep things in context, the Jewish people would be deeply offended if you tried that one on them as they would feel you were trying to Christianise them, you have to respect other religions and not put your interpretation on another religion.
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But we are Christians. St. Joseph was Jewish and (presumably) died before the death and resurrection of Christ, but we still call him a saint. I doubt there has ever been a formal canonization, but why should there have to be for a Biblical figure?

I am really puzzled by the level of separation you place between Judaism and Christianity and the way you have erected what seems to me an arbitrary limit on the Church’s authority when it comes to all things Jewish. The authority of the Church is after all just the delegated authority of Christ, and surely Christ has the authority to interpret Judaism.

Sure, we cannot dictate what non-Catholics believe. We cannot say “modern Jews believe XYZ” when they don’t. In that limited sense you could say the Church does not have authority to interpret Judaism. But this principle does not extend to authentically interpreting the Old Testament or such matters as whether to regard the holy men and women described in it as saints in heaven. Whether these people are saints in heaven is an objective reality independent of how non-Christian Jews today may feel on the subject. An analogy could be the Old Testament books. They are part of the Christian Bible as much as anyone else’s Bible, and the Church really does have the authority to declare an individual book canonical or not regardless of what the Jews think about it.

[By the way, I would never have guessed you were a Jewish convert with a name like Celtic Maiden. I imagine there’s an interesting story behind that. :)]
 
I pray to Moses.

I have a devotion to Joshua, so I end up bugging Moses quite a lot, too. 😃 I don’t know why we don’t pray to the OT saints more. They are awesome intercessors, and I have seen a number of terribly odd and wonderful things happen through their prayers.

The OT saints are most certainly in heaven. This has been covered before in the Catholic Answers Ask an Apologist section:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=232157

Unfortunately, it’s hard to find pre-written novenas and prayers to them. Here’s one blog with a simple novena to Moses, involving the Jesus prayer and readings from Exodus through Deuteronomy. Looks good to me:

theresadoyle-nelson.blogspot.com/2012/09/novena-to-st-moses.html

And as a point of curiosity, it would seem that some Jews do pray to saints, although they don’t use that terminology. Here’s a video on YouTube that shows thousands of Jews imploring Joshua’s intercession at his tomb on the West Bank.

youtube.com/watch?v=mjhjNqNwr10
(The whole video is interesting, but watch especially between 7:40 and 10:00.)
 
MorEphrem said:
Spot on posts, Aelred Minor 👍
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I’ll second that. 😉
Aelred_Minor said:
It’s interesting that you chose the example of Elijah since this the OT figure I have most often seen called a saint (St. Elijah) in Western Catholic sources, generally in a context having to do with the Carmelites.
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Indeed St Elias figures greatly into Carmelite tradition. 🙂 There was a time when I was friendly with a number of O.Carm (in was in the pre-conciliar era when the Carmelite Rite was sill in regular use), one of whom was somewhat of an expert on such matters. He frequently made reference to the O.Carm’s eremetical roots in the Holy Land and that certain elements of their spirituality derive from Eastern/Oriental Christian themes.

In addition to what MorEphrem said, I might mention here that veneration of OT figures is not at all unusual in the Oriental Churches. There are churches and monasteries in both the Syriac and Coptic Traditions dedicated to a few (I’m not all that well versed in the Ethiopian Tradition, but I believe they venerate even more. As well as St Elias, there is Moses, Isaiah, & David (usually not noted with the honorific “St” in English, but most definitely with the equivalent in the local tongues), among others. It seems to me that those who were pleasing to God, whether under the Old Covenant or the New Covenant, deserve our respect. 🙂

And then, already noted, there are, of course, the early NT figures, including S Joseph, Ss Anne & Joachim, St John the Baptist, etc. Putting aside the fact that formal canonization is of far more recent vintage, there has been, as you mentioned in another post, no formal “canonization” of any of them. There didn’t need to be. 🙂
 
I certainly pray to St. Moses the Arch-prophet. And also to all the other saints named for him especially St. Moses the Black!

Holy Arch-prophet Moses pray to God for us!

(but I am one of those weird Eastern Catholics)
 
As a Latin, I have always invoked the intercession of the Old Testament righteous. Our faith tells us that the gates to heaven were not opened until Christ conquered death, but the righteous of the Old Testament waited in Hades in what our tradition calls “the Limbo of the Fathers” until Christ came. When Christ died, He descended to this “Limbo”'in Hades (also known as Abraham’s bosom) and opened the gates to heaven. Certainly, all of the Old Testament righteous are now saints in heaven - Jesus came to save them as well - not just us who came after them! Devotions to Old Testament saints may not be common in the Latin Church (outside of the Carmelite tradition which greatly venerates St Elijah), but many of the patriarchs and prophets are commemorated in the Roman Martyrology with optional feasts. Our First Parents, Adam and Eve, have an optional feast on December 24. In the Roman Canon we honor Abraham as our “Father in faith” - how can he not be a saint? Considering the key position Scripture gives him as father to us all, I think all Catholics should venerate him. Remember also that it was Sts Moses and Elijah who appeared at the transfiguration with Our Lord.
In the Roman Rite on Holy Saturday we read the following homily in the divine office: vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010414_omelia-sabato-santo_en.html

No one can read the above homily and still think that our First Parents aren’t saints…
 
Aelred_Minor said:
But we are Christians. St. Joseph was Jewish and (presumably) died before the death and resurrection of Christ, but we still call him a saint. I doubt there has ever been a formal canonization, but why should there have to be for a Biblical figure?

I am really puzzled by the level of separation you place between Judaism and Christianity and the way you have erected what seems to me an arbitrary limit on the Church’s authority when it comes to all things Jewish. The authority of the Church is after all just the delegated authority of Christ, and surely Christ has the authority to interpret Judaism.

Sure, we cannot dictate what non-Catholics believe. We cannot say “modern Jews believe XYZ” when they don’t. In that limited sense you could say the Church does not have authority to interpret Judaism. But this principle does not extend to authentically interpreting the Old Testament or such matters as whether to regard the holy men and women described in it as saints in heaven. Whether these people are saints in heaven is an objective reality independent of how non-Christian Jews today may feel on the subject. An analogy could be the Old Testament books. They are part of the Christian Bible as much as anyone else’s Bible, and the Church really does have the authority to declare an individual book canonical or not regardless of what the Jews think about it.

[By the way, I would never have guessed you were a Jewish convert with a name like Celtic Maiden. I imagine there’s an interesting story behind that. :)]
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I can’t answer for the OP but I would say unequivically that there is a great separation between Judaism and Christianity. True, the very first Christians were Jews, but that changed very very rapidly. Within just a few years of Jesus death the overwhelming number of Christians were gentile/pagan converts. Jews never accepted the basic tenents of Christianity,in fact they totally rejected them, and as a matter of fact they still do. You really can’t have much more separation than that. In that regard Christianity is much closer to Islam than it is to Judaism.

To imply that there really isn’t much separation or difference between the two faiths is I feel, demeanibg and insulting to both.
 
As an FYI, SS Adam and Eve are on the Liturgical calendar. Theirs is an optional memorial on Dec. 24
 
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