St. Mary of Egypt

(Mark 10:32b-45) (Great Lent 5: St. Mary of Egypt)

Today, we celebrate St. Mary of Egypt. Those of you who were able to attend the Matins service last Wednesday evening heard, with the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, the account she gave of her life; and of the manner of her departing from this world.

St. Mary would certainly have found a place for herself in today’s culture. She gave herself fully to enjoying her sexuality, and practiced every possible vice in association with these desires. Imagine what she might have done with the internet at her disposal! No, on second thought, don’t imagine that… But in a world where “stars” (if we can call them that) of pornographic movies and magazines have celebrity status, and incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, there would have been a place for St. Mary of Egypt to indulge her fleshly passions for fun and profit.

By God’s grace, she was prevented from entering a church for the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, until, with the help of the most holy Theotokos, she confessed her sins, and repented, and asked for help in living a new life. Then, she could enter the church, and reverence the Cross. She was baptized, and received the Holy Mysteries, and then, the same day, to fulfill her vow, went into the desert, with only the clothes on her back, and three loaves of bread. It would be seventeen years before she spoke again with another human being. In that time, by her own words, she suffered from hunger and thirst, and from the heat and cold of the desert; but above all, by the desire to please her flesh, to return to the way of life she had lived before repenting and confessing. She said that she often had to throw herself to the ground and bite the earth to fight the assaults of the demons and the temptations – and that she might spend a day and a half in such conflict, until the temptation had passed her by. By God’s grace, in her time in the desert, she mastered the passions, and these no longer beset her – although she was always wary of their return, and kept her guard always. Yet St. Zosimas, whom she met in the desert during Great Lent, to whom she told her story, at one time saw her praying an arm’s length in the air, above the ground – a sign to him, and to us, of her holy prayer. She asked him to return at the same time the next year, that she might receive the Holy Mysteries once more, for the first time in seventeen years. He returned, and she received, and gave her soul to the Lord the very same day. St. Zosimas found her incorrupt relics at his return the next year, where he, with the help of a lion, buried St. Mary in the desert.

Why do we celebrate St. Mary of Egypt? We need to know that there is no sin that the Lord will not forgive; there is no sinner who is beyond redemption – no one here who is lost because of their sins, so long as they – we – will call upon the Lord and confess our sins, and repent of them. We also need to see that we are not able to allow ourselves to continue to indulge ourselves in our sins, to be the “victims” of the passions that torment us. Who among us has spent a day and a half writhing on the ground, biting it, while praying fervently for the passion to depart from us? Who among us has fasted to the point of hunger? Who among us has forsaken the world and everything and everyone in it, in order to be alone with God, and to do battle with all the things that interfere with our relationship with God? I know I haven’t.

Most of us cannot flee to the desert to do battle with our sins, and with the demons. Let’s face it – most of us don’t want to! As such, most of us will not attain the holiness that came to be part of St. Mary’s life. But this does not mean that we do not need to fast; or to pray; or to give alms; or to struggle with all our might against the passions that lead us, time and time again, into sin after sin after sin. As God gives us time, and strength, and opportunity, we need to do battle, again, and again, and again, with every thought, word, deed, and desire for anything that causes us to defile His image in us, and to wound ourselves and others with our sins.

Brothers and sisters: Great Lent is drawing to a close. Soon, we will recall the events of our Lord’s Passion and death; and His glorious Resurrection. Even at this late date, we are called by our Lord, and by His Church, to remember His mercy shown to St, Mary of Egypt; the same mercy and forgiveness He offers to us, if we will only stretch forth our hands to receive it, and make it our own in prayer and fasting and giving and struggle. Let us dedicate ourselves once more to being transformed into His likeness; and call upon St. Mary to help us to leave behind our sins, and love and serve the Lord.

Holy mother Mary, pray to God for us!