by Fr. Jonathan H. Cholcher
“May God who works amazing miracles and generously bestows gifts on those who turn to Him with faith, reward those who seek light for themselves in this story, who hear, read, and are zealous to write it, and may He grant them the lot of blessed Mary together with all who at different times have pleased God by their pious thoughts and labors.” (St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, The Life of Our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt, epilogue)
Here near the end of the season of Great Lent we have the story of Saint Mary of Egypt, a woman who spent 47 years in repentance alone in the wilderness. Her story and name were only revealed to the rest of the Church through the monk Zosimas upon her bodily death. Saint Mary’s story is a remarkable account of personal redemption and salvation accomplished by the grace of God. Yet despite her seclusion and anonymity, the story of this holy woman is intended in the Church not as a remote, isolated occurrence, but as a supreme example of what God is working in every Christian, namely the story of our personal salvation.
What are the defining characteristics of personal salvation demonstrated in the story of Saint Mary of Egypt? How do the characteristics of St. Mary’s salvation apply to each and every one of us in our own personal circumstances of life and journey to God?
- What God worked in Saint Mary the individual was always intended as a benefit to others pursuing communion with God. Each person is an integral part of God’s greater plan of salvation for all.
The Elder Zosimas pleaded with Mary: “I beg you…Tell me everything so that the marvelous works of God may become known. A hidden wisdom and a secret treasure – what profit is there in them?…If it were not the will of God that you and your life should be known, He would not have allowed me to see you and would not have strengthened me to undertake this journey, one like me who never before dared to leave his cell.”
The story of Saint Mary begins with this truth involving the Elder Zosimas who was raised from childhood in a monastery and thus, at the age of 53, had attained to every degree of monastic discipline. “[H]e began to be tormented with the thought that he was perfect in everything and needed no instruction from anyone, saying to himself mentally, ‘Is there a monk on earth who can be of use to me and show me a kind of asceticism that I have not accomplished?’” An angel appeared to the Elder Zosimas, saying: “[T]here is no man who has attained perfection. Before you lie unknown struggles greater than those you have accomplished. That you may know how many other ways lead to salvation, leave your native land…and go to the monastery by the River Jordan.”
So the Elder Zosimas went as directed. He adhered to the rule of that monastery “which was the reason why God brought Zosimas there.” Every Great Lent, the monks crossed the Jordan River and spent the entire season alone dispersed among the wilderness, returning to the monastery on Palm Sunday. Having traveled 20 days into the wilderness, the Elder Zosimas encountered Saint Mary, learned her story, and then passed it on to the rest of the faithful.
The story of Saint Mary of Egypt in fact shows how intertwined our lives really are by God’s design. We pursue our own individual plans and goals, but regarding salvation, God directs our individual circumstances toward His greater goal of finding Him and the truth of our existence, eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Even if God leads someone to live a basically isolated, or independent, life of repentance, somehow that person ultimately relates to and affects others for their edification. So there are no coincidences, or accidents, when it comes to the circumstances of our lives being directed by the will of God.
- Saint Mary’s great repentance and faith were always situated within the greater context of the common liturgical and mystical (sacramental) life of the Church given by Christ to all the faithful.
Despite her sinful neglect of godliness for many years, Saint Mary attributed her miraculous repentance to the gifts of God first given to her in Baptism before her fall. “Know, holy father, that I am only a sinful woman, though I am guarded by Holy Baptism.”
Saint Mary rejoiced eventually to enter the Church at Jerusalem and venerate the Cross of the Lord (at the Feast of the Exaltation; Sept. 14), and she received guidance from the Theotokos Virgin Mary before her holy Icon. “In my thoughts I returned to the icon of the Mother of God which had received me and to her I cried in prayer…But always I turned the eyes of my mind to my Protectress, asking her to extend help to one who was sinking fast in the waves of the desert. And I always had her as my Helper and the Accepter of my repentance.”
Saint Mary began and ended her journey of repentance by receiving the Very Body and Blood of Christ. Holy Communion was both the foundation and goal of her earthly pilgrimage of faith.
Saint Mary repeatedly acknowledged the Elder Zosimas’s necessary exercise of the Priesthood, to bless, to pray, and to give her Holy Communion. “Abba Zosimas, it is you who must give blessings and pray. You are dignified by the order of the priesthood and for many years you have been standing before the holy altar and offering the sacrifice of the Divine Mysteries.” “[T]he grace of the Holy Spirit has brought you to render me a service in time…therefore I ask and implore you to grant me my wish, bring me the lifegiving Mysteries at the very hour when our Lord made His disciples partake of His Divine Supper.”
Saint Mary’s final act was to request the Christian burial of her body along with the continued prayers of the Elder Zosimas. She had written her own epitaph revealing to Zosimas for the first time her name, Mary, and the fact that she had reposed on the very day of her receiving the Divine Mysteries (Holy Communion).
- Saint Mary’s life of repentance is a testament to genuine conversion experienced by all true believers in Christ.
First, God would not allow sinful Mary into the Church in Jerusalem, in order to bring her to an awareness of her chosen path of self-destruction. In her exhaustion and rejection by the Church, like the prodigal son, she “came to [her]self” (Lk. 15:17). “But I think God was seeking my repentance. For He does not desire the death of a sinner but magnanimously awaits his return to Him…The word of salvation gently touched the eyes of my heart and revealed to me that it was my unclean life which barred the entrance to me. I began to weep and lament and beat my breast, and to sigh from the depths of my heart.”
Mary’s new-found awareness led her to implore the help of the Theotokos whose icon she stood before, and Mary vowed to “renounce the world and its temptations and will go wherever thou wilt lead me,” if she would be allowed to enter the Church and venerate the Cross of Christ. Mary’s vow was genuine and honored as such because after venerating the Cross, she returned and knelt before the icon of the Theotokos and heard from on high: “If you cross the Jordan you will find glorious rest.” Mary thus embarked on her journey that very day, entering the Church of St. John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan to receive Holy Communion and then crossing the river in a boat the following morning to enter the wilderness where she lived alone for the next 47 years.
Second, the struggle of repentance advances according to certain spiritual laws. One, repentance is founded upon the obedience of faith. Mary vowed to obey the direction of the Theotokos, and when directed to cross the Jordan River, she simply obeyed the voice and went, not even understanding fully the implications of that obedience. The important factor of obedience is no longer following one’s own mind and will, but turning one’s mind and will completely to God.
Two, repentance involves undoing the habits of sin in the practice of the opposites of those sins. For 17 years Mary pursued with abandon a life of total depravity and fornication. She told Zosimas: “Believe me, Abba, seventeen years I passed in this desert fighting wild beasts – mad desires and passions.” Her isolation in the wilderness was the opposite of her previous constant association with others engaging in debauchery. “And how can I tell you about the thoughts which urged me on to fornication, how can I express them to you, Abba? A fire was kindled in my miserable heart which seemed to burn me up completely and to awake in me a thirst for embraces. As soon as this craving came to me, I flung myself on the earth and watered it with my tears, as if I saw before me my witness, who had appeared to me in my disobedience and who seemed to threaten punishment for the crime. And I did not rise from the ground (sometimes I lay thus prostrate for a day and a night) until a calm and sweet light descended and enlightened me and chased away the thoughts that possessed me.”
Three, in addition to the calming light enveloping Mary, God gives proofs of enlightenment to those on the path of true repentance. The assistance and protection of the Theotokos is real and palpable. “And since then even till now the Mother of God helps me in everything and leads me as it were by the hand.” Mary fasted, and her clothes disintegrated over time, yet God provided whatever food she needed and guarded her from injury by the weather, teaching her the Word of God without ever having read the Scriptures. “When I only reflect on the evils from which our Lord has delivered me I have imperishable food for hope of salvation. I am fed and clothed by the all-powerful Word of God, the Lord of all.”
Saint Mary was blessed with various spiritual gifts. She was given the gift of clairvoyance, or spiritual insight. She knew Zosimas’s name without ever meeting him before, and that he was a priest. As she prayed upon meeting Zosimas, Mary hovered in the air about a forearm’s distance from the ground. She knew of the condition of the monastery of which Zosimas was a monk. She knew that Zosimas would be prevented by illness from coming to her the following Lent, but that he would bring her Holy Communion on the following Holy Thursday. She walked on the water of the Jordan River to approach Zosimas and receive Holy Communion, returning to the wilderness the same way.
Most importantly, Saint Mary’s repentance was proven by two chief virtues: humility and the love of God. Saint Mary was completely devoid of the feelings of deservedness, vainglory, and pride; she was confessedly unworthy and the lowest of sinners willing to endure whatever hardships and indignities necessary to bring her into communion with God. Greatest of all, Mary’s love of God overcame her love of pleasure, love of self, and love of the world. The love of God led Mary to her true rest in God alone, shown clearly at her burial with the assistance of a normally ferocious lion, which “went off into the depth of the desert like a lamb.”
- The story of Saint Mary of Egypt demonstrates how God intends the extraordinary to become ordinary, that is, how the salvation of Mary must become our own personal salvation.
Zosimas answered Mary (after she walked across the waters of the Jordan to receive Communion): “Truly God did not lie when He promised that when we purify ourselves we shall be like Him. Glory to Thee, Christ our God, who has shown me through this Thy slave how far away I stand from perfection.”
After burying Mary and returning to the monastery, Zosimas related her story. The monks corrected the wrongs in the monastery, at Mary’s foretelling, and kept her memory as told them. Zosimas lived almost another 50 years as a monk in the same monastery before passing to eternal life.
In other words, Zosimas, his fellow monastics, and everyone who hears this story of Saint Mary of Egypt is to incorporate this story into our own lives for our own personal salvation. Yes, the story of Saint Mary is extraordinary, but it must become ordinary for us, if indeed we are attempting, in whatever condition or circumstances God is leading us, to pursue the same salvation in repentance, faith, obedience, humility, and the love of God in Jesus Christ, “to whom belongs all glory, honor, dominion, and adoration with the eternal Father and the most holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and throughout all ages. Amen.”
