 Thank you, Dr. Hahn. It's a great honour for me to be here. In fact, it occurred to me last night that after my conversion and I was eventually offered to go and study, my first thought was I would love to go and study in Stubborn. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible because we thought I needed a German degree and so I was kind of forced to study in Germany and after two years my spiritual director said, well, I don't think you're learning much useful stuff. Go on to Rome. Anyway, so it's a huge blessing to suddenly find myself in Stubbornville all the same. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, you've promised to be where two or three are gathered in your name. We've gathered in 400 and we praise and thank you for being present here. Lord, we ask you now to pour out your Holy Spirit so that you yourself open up these scriptures to us just as you did to the disciples in Emmaus. Lord Jesus, we will be meditating how you prepared Moses to be a prophet for desert times and you've called and anointed each and every one of us in our baptism and confirmation to be prophets for desert times. And as we reflect on Moses' life, Lord, I ask you that the scriptures we will be hearing will come as an anointing balm in our souls and that you heal us from all the lies that tell us that we're not worthy of being prophets and that we are unable, that our limitations are binding us. Lord, as we meditate on your word, I ask you to deliver us from every lie, from every stronghold of the evil one in our minds and hearts. And we ask you, Lord, for the grace that abided in our Lady who when your call reached her, she said, Behold, let it done unto me according to your word. So Mary, we consecrate this morning's hour to you and ask for your intercession that you continually pray for us. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Saint Moses. You'll be surprised, but he has a feast day in the diocese of Jerusalem. The story goes that when Saint Joan of Arc first became aware of the miserable situation that her people found themselves in under the occupation of the English, she prayed, Lord, when your people were in Egypt, you sent Moses to deliver them. Now France is enslaved by the English, so Lord, please send another Moses. As you know, Saint Joan of Arc was a saint and so obviously the Lord heard her prayer. What did he say? Yes, Joan, I've heard my people cry and I have come down to deliver them. And now go, you will be my Moses. I am sending you to bring my people out of Egypt. In bigger or smaller ways, the Lord has called each and every one of us to be a Moses to his people. Remember the story in the book of Numbers chapter 11 verses 16 to 30. Moses has gotten wary of carrying these people through the desert and complained to God. And so God promised to give a portion of his spirit and put it on 70 elders so that they would share Moses' burden of leadership. And as soon as the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. Now two men had remained in the camp, Eldot and Medot. They were not with Moses and yet they started to prophesy. So a young man ran to Moses and he said those two people are in the camp and yet they're prophesying. And Joshua, the zealous Joshua, son of Nun, the assistant of Moses said, My Lord, Moses, stop them. But Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on all of them? Indeed, would that the Lord would put his spirit on all of God's people? As you know, the Lord eventually heard Moses' prayer and put his spirit on all of God's people. It took, however, roughly another 1400 years and another Moses to word the same request, namely the risen Lord Jesus who ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit from the Father on the entire church on the day of Pentecost. Now the prophecy of old had come to pass as St. Peter recognizes on Pentecost when he addresses the astonished people of Jerusalem saying, This is exactly what had been uttered by the prophet Joel. And in the last days, it shall be God declares that I will pour my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams even on my male servants and females. Servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. On the day of Pentecost, on the day of Pentecost, the church was born as a people of priests, prophets and kings. We are a prophetic people. The question thus imposes itself, What is a prophet? What is our vocation as prophets? God reveals it in the Old Testament prophets and most particularly in the life of Moses. According to the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was the prophet par excellence. Deuteronomy chapter 34 verses 10 to 12 declares there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. According to the Hebrew Bible, there was never a prophet greater than Moses and so Moses vocation and his life as a prophet is paradigmatic of all the prophetic calls that follow in the Bible. Moses is the epitome of a prophet after whom all the other prophets in the Bible are modeled and for that reason by studying his life we come to understand our own prophetic calling better and particularly how to face the challenges it poses. As I said in our own little ways, God has made each and every one of us a shepherd to a flock, some bigger, some smaller but God expects us to shepherd these people through the desert of this world and that is not an easy task. However, God has not left us without an instruction. The life of Moses is so to say a manual for anyone called to be a leader and or a prophet in the church and that is all of us. All the challenges and aspects of the life of a prophetic leader are encapsulated in the Bible's narrative of Moses life. So in the very limited time allotted to us this morning I will focus on four main aspects of Moses life in preparation for him to become the leader capable of leading God's people through the desert. I will first speak about how God prepared Moses for this mission. Secondly, I'll speak about Moses vocation, then about Moses as God's ambassador and then if there is time Moses a man of prayer. God prepares Moses his life before the call. Those of you who have experienced a vocation, a conversion as adults might be familiar with my own temptation, namely to think that my life before I came to know the Lord was a life not worth of recounting almost as a waste of time. The joy of having met Jesus and the tremendous changes that encounter brings about makes everything lived previously appear as dull lacking orientation and even sense. However, when we reflect on our life in the light of Moses life, we will soon come to realize that there was never a time when God was not active in our life using every single aspect of it to prepare us for our future mission. Not a second was wasted, nothing happened by accident and even the most painful circumstances we may have experienced will prove to have been in God's providential plan and guided by his loving paternal hand. The greater your vocation and the more likely it is that God allowed you to suffer the very wounds that you are called to soothe in God's people's lives. So let's turn to Moses and learn from him. If you read Exodus 1-3 attentively, you will come to realize that Moses suffered and experienced in his own flesh everything that the people will later undergo. He has to first experience God's liberation himself before he can announce it to God's people with authority. Moses is born in a time of extreme persecution and oppression. The enemy of God's people were afraid of the children of Israel and doing everything in their power to blot out the Hebrews. They ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service. Moreover, for fear that the people of God would become more numerous than themselves, the Egyptians adopted a very ancient method of abortion. They demanded the midwives to kill all the male children born to the Hebrews. And as you know, the midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and let the male children live in spite of the order to kill them. Thereupon, Pharaoh commanded his people to take every son that was born to the Hebrews and cast them into the Nile. Let us reread the story even though you know it well. Now, a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw that the child was beautiful, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and dobbled it with pitoumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds in the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now, the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant women and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. So the girl went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to the Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water. Now, the first thing to notice obviously is that Moses' own life was threatened and persecuted by Pharaoh just as his own people's lives will later be persecuted by another Pharaoh who in the night of the Exodus will drive the people into deathly waters. That's exactly what was supposed to happen with Moses. He was supposed to be killed in water and the next Pharaoh will try to kill the Israelites in water. Similar to his people, however, Moses is not killed by the water but miraculously saved through it. Pharaoh's daughter calls him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water. Moses, who should have died, is, so to say, reborn through the water. Just as Israel will be reborn as free children of God through the water of the Red Sea. Moreover, if you were reading the text in Hebrew, you would discover that the basket in which Moses is floating on the Nile is called by the same technical term, Teba, as only one other floating object in the Bible which saved a father and his family namely the Ark of Noah. The author of the book of Exodus wants us to see the connection. In the words of a very famous Jewish scholar named Umberto Cazuto, by this verbal parallel, by the Ark of Noah being called with the same technical term as the basket that saves Moses, the Torah wished to draw attention to the parallelism of the theme. In both cases, there is to be saved from drowning one who is worthy of salvation and is destined to bring deliverance to others. Here it is humanity that is to be saved in the case of Noah and there it is the chosen people. Here it is the macrocosm and there it is the microcosm. Same as the righteous Noah and his offspring were saved through the very water that brought death and destruction to the rest of the world. So also, Moses was saved through the very water which Pharaoh had intended to kill him as will be the children of Israel in the Exodus while that water will kill the Egyptians. However, though Moses' life is miraculously saved through water, he is not spared from suffering. First, his mother was hiding him for three months, probably forbidding him even to make the slightest noise lest the Egyptian child slaughterers would discover him. Now imagine a baby that is never allowed to cry. Is it any wonder that Moses grew up to be a stammerer? Then try to imagine the rejection he felt when his mother put him in the basket and sent him down on a journey on the Nile all by himself. Sure, you might say he was only a baby, but from modern psychology we know that even the rejection of a child in the mother's womb leaves a deep scar on the baby's soul. So how much more in the psyche of a three-month-old baby, which when the lid of the basket is eventually reopened, finds a face looking back at him that is so very different from that of his mother. He is ironically found and saved by Pharaoh's daughter who adopts him. By God's providence and the cunning intervention of Moses' sister, he is then again nursed by his own mother. Certainly, Moses must have been delighted to be once again suckling on his mother's breast. But we can also imagine that his mother, he must have felt his mother's distance who was forced to pretend that this baby was the son of an Egyptian princess. All this must have been extremely confusing for little Moses and certainly had no small impact on the development of his sense of security and identity. In short, Moses was born into a loving Hebrew family and yet external circumstances constrained his mother to give him away. She did not choose this herself. She was forced to do so. But of course, little Moses didn't know that. All he knew was that he was abandoned and floating in a basket on the Nile. His mother did it to give him life, but again, he didn't know that. He was only aware of the loneliness and the abandonment. And yet, all of this was in God's providence so that Moses could live and be educated at Pharaoh's court in order for him to become the man that God needed him to be. If Moses had grown up normally in the home of his parents, he would have never been able to lead Israel out of Egypt and receive and transmit God's laws to his people. For this particular mission, he needed a certain education. He needed, in the words of the Acts of the Apostles, to be instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He had to learn how to read and write. He was instructed in the mysteries of Maat, which is the Egyptian concept of righteousness, which is why later, even before the revelation at Sinai, he understood how to act as a judge over the legal disputes of his people. He had to learn how to speak and behave at Pharaoh's court, which is why later, he always had a direct access to Pharaoh. How else could he have talked to him? A Hebrew slave would certainly not have been allowed to appear before Pharaoh, nor would he have known how to bargain with him. Moses, however, had the status and the education of a son of Pharaoh as the Acts of the Apostles say, he was mighty in words and deeds. Yet, this tremendous preparation for his later mission came at a very great price. Moses was separated from his parents as a small child, grew up in a completely foreign and even idolatrous culture at the court of Pharaoh as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, where he almost certainly had to serve idols. And yet, God allowed this in his providence for the sake of Moses' education and mission. Now, what was all that like for Moses? He certainly knew that he was an adopted child. He must have suffered from the consciousness of being and looking like a Hebrew who had apparently been rejected by his family, growing up among Egyptians and never being one of them. Did he try to hide his origin? We don't know. But it is not hard to imagine that he tried as hard as possible to assimilate to the Egyptians. According to the Acts of the Apostles, which reflects an old Jewish tradition, he was at Pharaoh's court for 40 years. Now, back in the day, that equaled a lifetime. What was Moses' goal in life? What gave his life meaning during those 40 years? Only when he was 40, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. That was the age when he must have had some kind of conversion or some inner urge which reminded him that he was not an Egyptian and that he was supposed to take care of his people. Incidentally, one of our great spiritual masters, the Dominican mystic Johannes Tauler, says that nothing serious happens in our life before the age of 40. Isn't that a consolation? So what happens next? Let's listen to the Scriptures. He went out to his people and looked on their burdens and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew one of his people. He looked this way and that way, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together and he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion? He answered, who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you mean to kill us as you kill the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian and he sat down by a well. When Moses comes to his people and sees the Egyptian killing the Hebrew, he is overcome with righteous anger. This is an emotion that many of us experience in the face of innocent suffering and the exploitation of the oppressed. So Moses acts in the heat of the moment and comes to the aid of his brother. But on the next day, in the same fervor, he judges a brother in the wrong. Now, what's so interesting is that he is instinctively acting out his vocation to be the savior and the judge of his people. However, he does not yet realize that it also takes a commission by God to set out on one's mission and that one must not seek to accomplish it by human means. Moses will have to learn to act only upon God's word and that God does not redeem by fist or sword. Having thus attempted in vain to save his brothers by his own means, he flees into the desert into the land of Midian where he marries a woman called Sipporah, one of the daughters of the priest of Midian and spends the next 40 years shepherding the flock of his father-in-law. Can you imagine? After living for 40 years like an Egyptian prince and having sacrificed all of his privileges for an unwelcome attempt to save his brothers, he ends up in a foreign country spending his days past the ring sheep. For 40 long years, it does not take much imagination to big Moses as a man in complete resignation and depression. He's lost everything he ever had. He's a refugee persecuted by Pharaoh and rejected by his own people, a sojourner in a foreign land or as the Acts of the Apostles call his condition an exile in the land of Midian. And yet, this too was God's providence. After all these years of luxury and supereducation, the Ivy League of back in the day, Moses needed to go on a long retreat to be purified from all the contamination of the world before he could become the meekest of all men as numbers calls him and the docile instrument in God's hands that God needed him to be for the enormous mission that lay ahead. Now try to imagine the dullness of 40 years of shepherding sheep day in and day out in a desert country. Certainly, Moses had enough time to rehash his former life over and over again, seeking to understand if there was any meaning to it. Moses' past was painful and the future was bleak. Nothing but sheep and desert rocks. Surely he saw no future for himself. If you want to translate those 40 years into the language of our spiritual masters, this must have been the dark night of the soul. Moses was being prepared to encounter the Lord face to face whom no one can see without first dying to himself. And yet, Moses learned one more skill which he had not learned in Egypt, but which was vital for the future. He had to learn to be the shepherd of another's flock. Then, one day after another lifetime span of 40 years, having completely resigned to his fate at the age of 80, Moses was ready for his real mission for which God had been preparing him all along. He was doing what he always did, keeping the flock of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. This time, however, he did something a little different. He led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to whore up the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked and, behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight. Why the bush is not burned? When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called him out of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he said, here I am. Then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals of your feet for the place on which you're standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. God had prepared Moses, God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Now, if you saw the term for bush written in Hebrew, Sne, you would immediately recognize the Pan on Sinai. Even though the last consonant is written slightly differently, it is evident that the burning Sne is Moses own personal Sinai, a theophany that prefigures God's appearance in fire to Israel on Mount Sinai later on in the story. Again, we see the perfect parallel between Moses' life and that of his people. Whatever Moses will have to, sorry, whatever Israel will have to undergo, Moses has to first live and experience in himself. Only in this way will he be able to lead and guide the people through such a terrifying experience. It is here at the burning bush that Moses finds himself face to face with God and like Israel later on at Sinai, he's afraid and hides his face. Unlike Israel, however, Moses is not granted a mediator in his fear and trembling. Rather, God calls him into the fire and darkness of his presence to become this very mediator that the people will ask for. Moses has chosen, but again, this election comes at a great cost. The painful time of training us over, finally at the age of 80, when he might have thought himself ready for a well-deserved retirement, Moses receives and discovers his true vocation. Except for Charlotte, for most of us, this is still ahead of us. The vocation. The Lord said to Moses, I've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and I've heard the cry because of their taskmaskers. I know their sufferings and I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land into a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. God has seen the affliction of his people and has heard their cry. Their suffering is known to him and he has come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey, the epitome of paradise restored. So far, so good. Moses must have been delighted and overwent with joy. After all, this is what he had been his own desire ever since the day he had fled Egypt. However, God goes on to add a little detail. Come. I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people out of Egypt. In his mysterious designs for the salvation of humanity, God never acts without involving us. Just as the incarnation depended on the yes of a young Jewish virgin, so Israel's liberation is now tied to Moses accepting his mission. Poor Moses. We need to realize how humanly impossible that job was. According to human logic, truly a mission impossible. So Moses said, and apparently rightly so, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? No doubt any one of us would have voiced the same objection. However, Moses' answer reveals a deeper problem. He knows neither his own identities nor God's. That will be the next question. The fact that he no longer knows who he himself is is probably understandable. A child of Hebrews raised at the Pharaoh only court eventually rejected both by his own people and the Egyptian people. He lived as a stranger in the land of Median, son of law, of an idolatrous priest. During those 40 years in Median, he must have assumed even the identity of his in-laws. So God must first remind him that he, God, is the God of his fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's in encountering God that Moses rediscovered his own and true identity as a member of God's people. But Moses questioned, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt also reveals that Moses is looking for the enablement of his mission in himself in his own human capabilities and that was the mistake. Lord, at your word should have been the answer or be it done unto me according to your word not because I am anyone or capable of anything but because you Lord are sending me. Now, how many times in our lives how many times have I said no to a challenge because I was looking for the enablement in myself and not in God's commission? How many times have I allowed fear to overcome me and cause me to say no to God's calling? God, however, had prefaced the mission with a very important sentence before commanding Moses. He had said, I will lead my people out of Egypt. Man must only agree to be God's instrument. It is God who does the job. The problem is that all of us we always look at our own limitations our limited strength our limited education human talents abilities and then we say, Lord, I cannot possibly do that. God never implies that we can. On the contrary, his strength is shown in our weakness. And therefore, God now answers, but I will be with you. Does that remind you of a New Testament promise? Behold, I'm with you always till the end of the age. And that promise comes just after the commission to be missionaries. God never entrusts us with a mission without the absolute assurance that he will be with us every step of the way and that he will be the one to accomplish his work in us so that with St. Paul we can say, I can do all things through him that who strengthens me. Moses, however, in spite of his training in the Egyptian wisdom is slow in learning God's wisdom. And that is good for us for most of us with few exceptions are just as slow and God's infinite patience with Moses is hope for us. The interesting thing is that God promises Moses a sign which will prove to him that God has indeed sent him. When you have brought the people out of Egypt you shall serve God on this mountain, God says. That's going to be a sign. Now one would expect or hope to receive a sign before one starts out on one's mission. But no, God wants us to go with childlike trust and as we go we will come to know that it was he who sent us. The first step needs to be taken by faith. The confirmation follows afterwards for we walk by faith and not by sight. Moses, however, is not so quick in believing. So instead he asked God for his credentials. Can you imagine? He's asking God for his credentials. After all he might be thinking after 430 years in Egypt who is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to us? What is your name? Who are you? God and His mercy does not reproach Moses, but instead reveals his unfathomable name and with it a preview of the entire exodus. The preview of the future is an interesting feature which we know from other saints. St. Paul, for example, is at every turning point of his life informed that only calamities lay ahead of him. Or Mary Ward, a saint that's not so very well known, is just one other very good example. She's the founder of the Congregation of Jesus and she was told by the Lord to go and ask the pope to adopt this same constitution of the Jesuits for her newly founded order although Jesus told her clearly when sending her that the pope was going to refuse her. You might wonder then why even ask? If Jesus already knows the pope is going to decline her request. Well, 400 years later in 2002 John Paul the Second granted the request that very request to Mary Ward's daughters. Sometimes it needs patience for the execution of God's will but it will eventually come about. Looking at it from that angle Moses was lucky he only had to wait the time it would take for the Lord to send 10 plagues. Having been exposed to this massive revelation Moses' thoughts reflect back on himself and he finds another excuse. But behold they will not believe me or listen to my voice for they will say the Lord did not appear to you. It is as if Moses were saying please Lord send someone else who's more credible than myself. After all who am I that the people should believe me? I mean he's kind of right. Don't we often say the same? We feel this pinch to witness to the faith but on the other hand there's that voice that silences us and whispers who are you to preach the gospel? Look at how you live your life. You're not credible and after all what you even know about theology. Now do you know a saint who found herself in a similar position but gave an exemplary answer? It is Saint Bernadette of Lords. When the veracity of her witness to our ladies operations was doubted by the bishops and all bishop and all the local authorities who demanded some proof Bernadette simply answered with true wisdom and she said she, the lady, has only commissioned me to deliver her message. To convince you is her business. And thus just as God gave the miraculous spring of Lords as a sign to vouch for the veracity of Bernadette's message so God assisted Moses and empowered him to work three signs. Now at this point I imagine myself running off with my magic rod to show off my miracle powers. Not so Moses. He takes his resort to one last objection still hoping to convince God that he has chosen the wrong guy for the job and thus to enjoy his retirement. Oh Lord he objects once more. I'm not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant but I'm slow of speech and of tongue. Good point one would think for such an important mission one would want to be eloquent in speech and not a stammerer. But God made a better point. The Lord replied who has made man's mouth who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind is it not I the Lord now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak. I'm not sure if at this point I would have dare to bring forward another objection. Moses however does make another attempt at escaping his mission and finally tells God tells God straight in the face what he had been trying to convince God off all along. Oh Lord please send someone else. At this the Lord's anger was kindled against Moses. Though God condescends the last point to Moses by giving him Aaron as a spokesman Moses is not let off the hook. Some people have a calling that cannot be carried out by any other person on the planet and the only right response is prompt obedience to God's call. Now it might prove providential that Moses was just as stiff-necked as his people because similar to all his own efforts to evade God's call the people too will make every stupid attempt at remaining in Egypt or as we heard last night returning back to it. For some mysterious reason humanity prefers slavery to sin over the adventure of freedom that God has come down to offer us. Moses the ambassador the first problem that Moses now has to face is one of disbelief. When he comes to his people and announces the good news they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. This is the truly tragic effect of our fallen human condition. The consequences of slavery to sin can be so devastating that our innate disposition for faith and hope is utterly broken. Just as too much money can suffocate the soul's desire for God so too the oppression of a tyrant be it a human or a spiritual one be it sin or poverty can make man deaf and dumb for God's revelation. The centuries of slavery had successfully quenched all hope in the spirit of the Israelites that life in a better condition could even be possible. And many of us have made similar experiences in our own lives or with the people to whom we are sent to announce the good news. The burdens of life have made them hopeless. It's however important to note that the disbelief of the people does not relieve Moses of his mission. He has to plow on regardless of his people's faith and he will bring these people out despite of themselves despite of their lack of faith because we are called to believe and hope vicariously on their part. Now while they're still in Egypt Moses' main mission however is towards Pharaoh. It's Pharaoh's resistance to let the people go which Moses has to fight and overcome not his own people's disbelief. And one feature that stands out particularly is that Moses needs to be absolutely uncompromising with regards to God's command and message. Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness was the command. And to serve God in the wilderness signifies liturgical worship. That is the purpose of the Exodus. The worship of God. Pharaoh is to let them go so that they can worship God in the wilderness. Such intent seems idle in Pharaoh's eyes and so it does in the eyes of many modern politicians. After an initial attempt to flat out deny the Lord's command increasing plagues now force Pharaoh into negotiations. First he offers that they may serve God within the boundaries of the land but God has commanded to go out into the desert. Next Pharaoh offers to let them go into the wilderness only they must not go very far. Then Pharaoh is ready to let the men alone go to serve the Lord but God wants all of his people at his holy mountain the entire assembly of Israel the men, the women and children and not only the men. Finally Pharaoh is ready to let even the children go if only they are flock and herd stay behind in Egypt. Attempting compromise but Moses has to insist you must let us have a sacrifice and burned offerings that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. Our livestock also must go with us not a hoof shall be left behind for we must take them to serve the Lord our God and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there. In the face of Pharaoh's every diplomatic offer to achieve a compromise between his own interests and that of God Moses has to make his face as hard as flintstone and not seize an inch of God's command. He has to insist that Pharaoh obey the Lord and trust that God will have his ways even when humanly speaking this goal seems to be impossible to reach. But thanks to Moses blind obedience now finally in delivering God's unalterable orders he doesn't add anything he doesn't subtract anything the Lord himself now forced Pharaoh to let his people go. Now while until fairly recently I love to jump this Moses the man of prayer another feature that stands out in Moses battle with Pharaoh is something that characterizes the life of every true prophet. As a prophet Moses intercedes for Pharaoh his enemy. Intercession is one of the main duties of a prophet. People generally think of prophets as people who foretell the future that is not incorrect but it does not grasp the essence of the prophetic ministry. A prophet is first and foremost one who represents God's to the people and makes God known to the people and conveys God's law by revealing his word and interpreting his law. Because the prophet enjoys a particular intimacy with God the Lord communicates his decrees for humanity to him which he in turn is called to communicate to the people of God not in order to scare or condemn but in order to call for conversion so that the divine justizement can be avoided. And so by the same token the prophet is also the one who stands before the throne of God on behalf of the people. It is part of his mission to intercede for God's people at the heavenly throne. A prophet has the power to avert due punishment from the sinner. Thus it is striking that while Moses has the task to convey God's orders to Pharaoh he's equally charged with the mission to pray for this very enemy of his Pharaoh. And whenever Moses intercedes for Pharaoh the plague immediately ceases and life returns to normal. Salvation depends on conversion and this is where Pharaoh does not seize his chance. This is of course a powerful lesson for us the prophetic people of God because in a world that is drowning with sin drowning in sin we're not called to judge or condemn our fellow men but rather to intercede and plead with God for their life. God wishes that all men be saved Israelites as well as Egyptians. If the prophet is called to pray for his enemies the same task is owed all the more so for his own people. Indeed Moses' life makes evident that intercession for God's people is a central part of his mission. His entire life in the desert was one of sustained prayer to save Israel both from its external enemies but also from the righteous anger of God because of their continuous sin. This is made plain in the famous battle against Amalek the arch enemy of Israel. We heard about that last night whenever Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed whenever he lowered his hand Amalek prevailed. Like Christ's arms on the cross the prophet's hands have to be constantly raised in prayer to secure the final victory over Satan the arch enemy of God's people. The enemy however as I said lurks also from within. Again and again the people's sin and disbelief puts their life in danger of divine justizement. Upon the incident with the golden calf Israel's original sin God orders Moses let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I make a great nation of you Moses. It is here that the greatness of a prophet like Moses is revealed. Who of us would not have liked this offer after all the suffering that Moses had to undergo for his people to be relieved of this burden and yet become a great nation? Moses instead the most Christ-like of all the prophets answered, Alas this people's sin the great sin they have made for themselves gods of gold but now if you will forgive their sin but if not blot me out of your book that you have written. Like Jesus and Paul Moses is ready rather to put down his own life than to live without his people. Moses is quintessentially a man of prayer his ascent into the cloud of God's presence on Mount Sinai was a privilege he was granted on behalf of his people not just for himself. Like Peter on Mount Tabor Moses had to witness to what he had seen with his own eyes and it was the long time in the desert of Midian that had prepared him for this supernatural vision which then in turn enabled him to become the friend of God and savior of his people. Even Jesus followed that pattern. Then how much more do we need to be assiduous in prayer in order to witness to God and guide his people according to the Dominican motto to contemplate and to pass on to others the fruits of our contemplation. The greatest challenge in Moses life however might have been the task of then leading this unruly people through the desert. Therefore a good leader needs to first overcome the temptations of one's own flesh for he will then have to vicariously fight those of his people. At every corner of the way Moses is faced with fear with disbelief with grumbling rebellion greed, licentiousness and hopelessness of the people. There's not one sin they will fall prey to. They will, sorry, there's not one sin they will not fall prey to and Moses will all along have to be the one who stands as strong as a rock believing as if he saw the invisible. However, because our time is up I need to let you go to contemplate these mysteries in the deserts of your own home and to this may the Almighty God bless us in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.