What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Today is the feast of St. Moses, of the Old Testament. We are looking at some Patristic bits about Moses.

Clement of Alexandria writes about the burning bush and the crown of thorns (Christ the Educator 2.8.75):

When the Almighty Lord of the universe began to legislate through the Word and decided to make His power visible to Moses, he sent Moses a divine vision with the appearance of light, in the burning bush. Now a bramble bush is full of thorns. So too when the Word was concluding His legislation and His stay among men as their Lord, again He permitted Himself to be crowned with thorns as a mystic symbol. Returning to the place from which He had descended, the Word renewed that by which He had first come, appearing first in the bush of thorns and later being surrounded with thorns that He might show that all was the work of the same one power. He is one, and His Father is one, the eternal beginning and end.

 

In the 1962 Missale Romanum there are texts available for the feast "B. Mariae Virginis Divini Pastoris Matris" in the section toward the back of Masses for certain places.

Here is the nice…

COLLECT:
Domine Iesu Christe, Pastor bone,
qui pro ovibus tuis animam dedisti,
nosque populum tuum et oves pascuae tuae
in Cruce pendens Matri Virgini commendasti:
ipsa interveniente concede; ut, te Pastorem nostrum sequentes in terris,
ad pascua aeternae vitae perducamur in caelis….

QUICK TRANSLATION:
O Lord Jesus Christ, Good Shepherd,
who gave Your life for Your flock,
and while hanging on the Cross
commended us Your people and the flock of Your pasture
to the Virgin Mother:
as she is intervening, grant that we, following You our Shepherd here on earth,
may be led to the pastures of eternal life in the heavens.

Today is the feast of St. Moses, of the Old Testament.   The Roman Martyrology has an entry for him, which I am reproducing here with a translation:

1. Commemoratio sancti Moysis, prophetae, quem Deus elegit, ut populum in AEgypto oppressum liberaret et in terram promissionis adduceret; cui etiam in monte Sina sese revelavit dicens: "Ego sum qui sum", atque legem proposuit, quae vitam populi electi regeret.  Ille servus Dei in monte Nebo terra Moab coram terra promissionis plenus dierum obiit.

The commemoration of Holy Moses, the prophet, who God chose in order that he would liberate the people oppressed in Egypt and lead them into the promised land; the one to whom [God] revealed Himself on Mount Sinai, saying: "I AM WHO AM" and laid down the law, which would govern the life of the chosen people.  Full of days, this servant of God died on Mount Nebo in the land of Moab in sight of the land of promise.

The Father’s of the Church devoted great reflection on the figure of Moses, one of the very few whom Augustine points to with the super rare word "theologus".  He was central to their understanding of the OT in relation to the NT and how the Law functioned in the economy of salvation.  Moses was a "type" or foreshadowing of Christ.  As a result they sought a positive interpretation of this titanic figure, as well as the Law connected to him, in their polemics with Gnostics, Marcionites and Manichaeans.   They were careful not to let him overshadow Christ, however.  Thus, they focused on him as a prefiguring of Christ and the Law as being intended for all peoples (in some way) and not just for the Jews.  

As well as being a "type" of Christ, Moses was also, for the Fathers, a type of every believer.  This is a theme of Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses.  

Examples from the Fathers about Moses are too numerous for me to be comprehensive, but we can maybe see a few bits during the course of the day.  Here is a bit from Basil of Caesarea, "the Great" (Exegetic Homilies 1.1):

He who hated the pomp of royalty returned to the lowly state of his own race.  He preferred to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to have the fleeting enjoyment of sin.  He who, possessing naturally a love of justice, on one occasion even before the government of the people was entrusted to him was seen inflicting on the wicked punishment to the extent of death because of his natural hatred of villainy.  He was banished by those to whom he had been a benefactor.  He gladly left the uproar of the Egyptians and went to Ethiopia and, spending there all his time apart from others, devoted himself for forty years to the contemplation of creation.