"Sexual sin drags more souls to Hell than any other." This was the pronouncement of the Most Holy Mother of God as she appeared in Fatima, Portugal in 1917 before 70,000 witnesses. We say the Seventh Commandment proscribes adultery, but isn't every sexual sin adultery? Jesus counted sexual fantasy as an instance of adultery (Mt 5:28). And what of idolatry (continuing our meditation on the Ten Commandments)? Do we not bow before sex as a god, devoutly worshipping its images for hours and hours in the form of pornography? Do we not dishonor family by desecrating the holy rites practiced only by a father and mother? Do we not steal and even murder by robbing a young woman or young man of the gift they can never give again? And which form of covetousness is more commonly practiced than desiring a married woman or a married man?
It is right that St. Mary of Egypt should be our last meditation before we turn our eyes to Jerusalem and behold the desire of the everlasting hills (Gen 49:26), Jesus the King of kings, entering David's City. For we must have absolved hearts before claiming fealty to our King, and we must have clean hands before laying the palms of Eden at His feet.
We say "journeys" criss-cross our culture as multitudes march off in search of their "personal truths." To protect this prerogative, the courts have favored minorities to the point of suppressing the needs of the majority. Consider the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, which banished prayer from public schools, indeed, from all public gatherings. But this is nothing compared to other privations suffered by the majority — including holy marriage, the sacred family, and the rearing of our youth in safety and decency .... all sacrificed to protect the rights of tiny minorities.
It is said that each person has his or her truth. But the fact is, there is one truth, and each person has been granted a right to nurse what amounts to delusion. There is one truth, and no one manages to escape it. We are born, all of us everywhere, into the same, solitary journey. It begins in a garden of innocence. Here, we were closest to God — fulfilled, secure, and living lives pleasing to Heaven. We call this place Eden.
At some later time many choose to leave this happy scene and venture into the world of sensuality. According to a study published on the NIH website, this happens between age 15 and 16 across all ethnic groups and both genders. Eventually, many become enslaved to their desires. For example, in the U.S. 92% of all women and 99% of all men have used pornography. Incurable sexually-transmitted diseases have become epidemic. And every domain of our culture — from Kindergarten to television to the public library — has been eroticized. We call this place Egypt, for "in the land of Egypt, .... we sat by the flesh pots, and .... we did eat .... to the full" (Exod 16:3).
Staring at flesh pots (or computer screens) day after day and over a course of time, we discover an inescapable truth about ourselves: our bodies have become covered in filth (or incurable disease) and our minds are dogged by self-destructive desires. Yet, do we also discover a longing to return to God and to that place where our minds were wholesome and our bodies were healthy and our souls breathed Heaven's air. This, too, happily is inescapable.
But we cannot return. For we find that we ourselves have become a contagion. The Most Pure God cannot commune with the impure. And the Holy Spirit cannot rest in a polluted vessel. Moreover, in such a diseased state, we would befoul the Kingdom of Heaven. The point is powerfully made at the King's wedding banquet where the guest not having a wedding garment, betokening purity, is cast into outer darkness where men do wail and gnash their teeth (Mt 22:13).
We must turn our backs on the sensual life. We must purify ourselves. And we begin this process by washing the filth of worldliness off of ourselves. We call this place the Red Sea.
It is good to take the first steps towards God's light. At least we are no longer sinking into mud and descending further into darkness. This immersion of baptism makes a good start. We have taken solemn vows before God to resist the devil and all his works. In Holy Orthodoxy, We have spat upon him. But we find that the real work lies still before us. For our minds and souls, so long inured to evil, must be mastered. We must commit ourselves to abstinence and fasting to let the toxins leach out of us. Only then will we be able to enter the Land of Promise. We call this place of purgation the forty-year-wilderness.
And this is where we meet St. Mary of Egypt: in the desert. She is from Egypt, the archetype of sensuality. And it was here, at age 12, that she entered seventeen years of unbridled sensuality. She says,
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"I was born in Egypt and when I was twelve-years-old, I left my parents and
went to Alexandria. There I lost my chastity and gave myself to unrestrained and insatiable sensuality. For more than seventeen years I lived like that .... To me, life consisted in the satisfaction of my fleshly lust." (Vita) |
Nothing is said about her faith nor even belief in God. So we must imagine that Mary, like most of our own children, was not acquainted with morality. For nearly two decades she gave herself freely to immoral life transgressing all boundaries, which I suppose were invisible to her .... until her encounter with the Holy. Here was an inescapable boundary, a boundary which no longer remained ignored or unseen, and she could not cross it as hard as she tried:
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"When the Holy Feast of the Exaltation of the Venerable Cross of the Lord arrived,
I went about as before, looking for young men. At daybreak I saw that everyone was heading to the church, so I went along with the rest. When the hour of the Holy Elevation drew nigh, I was trying to enter into the church with all the people. With great effort I came almost to the doors, and attempted to squeeze inside. Although I stepped up to the threshold, it was as though some force held me back, preventing me from entering. I was brushed aside by the crowd, and found myself standing alone on the porch. I thought that perhaps this happened because of my womanly weakness. I worked my way into the crowd, and again I attempted to elbow people aside. However hard I tried, I could not enter. Just as my feet touched the church threshold, I was stopped. Others entered the church without difficulty, while I alone was not allowed in." (Vita) |
Left alone outside the enclosure, alienated from God, alienated from others, and (finally she realized) alienated from herself. FOr the first time she saw herself as she really was:
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"Then I realized that it was my sins that prevented me from seeing the Life-Creating Wood.
The grace of the Lord then touched my heart. I wept and lamented, and I began to beat my breast. Sighing from the depths of my heart, I saw above me an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Turning to Her, I prayed: 'O Lady Virgin, Who gave birth in the flesh to God the Word! I know that I am unworthy to look upon Your icon. I rightly inspire hatred and disgust before Your purity, but I know also that God became Man in order to call sinners to repentance. Help me, O All-Pure One. Let me enter the church. Allow me to behold the Wood upon which the Lord was crucified in the flesh, shedding His Blood for the redemption of sinners, and also for me. Be my witness before Your Son that I will never defile my body again with the impurity of fornication. As soon as I have seen the Cross of Your Son, I will renounce the world, and go wherever You lead me.' "After I had spoken, I felt confidence in the compassion of the Mother of God, and left the spot where I had been praying. I joined those entering the church, and no one pushed me back or prevented me from entering. I went on in fear and trembling, and entered the holy place. (Vita) |
Being accepted as a penitent, Mary heard the Most Holy Theotokos direct her to baptism and thence to the poison-leaching wilderness:
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"'O Lady, You have not rejected my prayer as unworthy. Glory be to God, Who accepts
the repentance of sinners. It is time for me to fulfill my vow, which You witnessed. Therefore, O Lady, guide me on the path of repentance.' "Then I heard a voice from on high: 'If you cross the Jordan, you will find glorious rest.'" (Vita) |
She followed the divine direction, which led her to a classic baptism:
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"At sunset I reached the church of Saint John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan.
After praying in the church, I went down to the Jordan and washed my face and hands in its water. Then in this same temple of Saint John the Forerunner I received the Life-Creating Mysteries of Christ. Then I ate half of one of my loaves of bread, drank water from the holy Jordan, and slept there that night on the ground." (Vita) |
She entered the desert and lived on a kind of manna:
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And she said, "I had with me two and a half loaves of bread when I crossed the Jordan.
Soon they dried out and hardened. Eating a little at a time, I finished them after a few years." (Vita) |
Hers was the wilderness period like unto the people Israel:
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When I began to eat bread, I thought of the meat and fish which I had in abundance in Egypt.
I also missed the wine that I loved so much when I was in the world, while here I did not even have water. I suffered from thirst and hunger. I also had a mad desire for lewd songs. I seemed to hear them, disturbing my heart and my hearing. Weeping and striking myself on the breast, I remembered the vow I had made. At last I beheld a radiant Light shining on me from everywhere. After a violent tempest, a lasting calm ensued .... a blessed Light encircled me, dispelling the evil thoughts that troubled me. (Vita) |
Indeed, her wilderness period lasted forty years plus seven at the time she related her story to a monk of Palestine named Zosima. Gradually, she emptied herself of all carnal desires so that she might be filled with the divine powers God wishes for all of us:
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Again she made the Sign of the Cross over the Jordan, and walked over the water as before,
and disappeared into the desert. After a long time, the Elder looked up and saw her standing in the air more than a foot above the ground. "I was fed and clothed by the all-powerful word of God, since man does not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God (Dt 8:3, Mt.4:4, Luke 4:4), and those who have put off the old man (Col 3:9) have no refuge, hiding themselves in the clefts of the rocks (Job 24:8, Heb 11:38). When I remember from what evil and from what sins the Lord delivered me, I have imperishable food for salvation." When Abba Zosimas heard that the holy ascetic quoted the Holy Scripture from memory, from the Books of Moses and Job and from the Psalms of David, he then asked the woman, "Mother, have you read the Psalms and other books?" She smiled at hearing this question, and answered, "Believe me, I have seen no human face but yours from the time that I crossed over the Jordan. I never learned from books. I have never heard anyone read or sing from them. Perhaps the Word of God, which is alive and acting, teaches man knowledge by itself (Col 3:16, 1 Thess 2:13). This is the end of my story." (Vita) |
The journey of St. Mary of Egypt was no different than the one we all inescapably face, Its elements include a pristine garden signifying our blameless youth, a landscape of alienation signifying our crossing into forbidden sensuality, Divine encounter, which is the baptism where we reject the culture of death, and a wilderness place where the poisons accumulated over a lifetime might slowly be leached out. The Holy Fathers have called this journey "the three-fold path" of purgation-illumination-union.
Mary's life is not a wild or forbidden story to be read, wondered at, and forgotten. It is the quintessential story of our time. If you do not believe this, you are not paying attention. Which of our children is not plunged into the midst of it? More to the point, it is the Christian story.
Eden, the place where all of us began, is the Bosom of Abraham, which is the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus says we will not enter unless we have the heart of a child (Mt 18:3).
Most of us have drunk from the poisoned waters of sensual Egypt. Jesus warns that even sexual fantasy is a form of adultery (Mt 5:28), and cruel anger is equivalent to murder (Mt 5:21-22). And if you can't take avert your eyes or keep your hands off of the sensual, "It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell" (Mt 5:29-30).
As to making a commitment to God, condemning the sensual life, this is the hallmark of Jesus' ministry: "Metanoeite! Repent!' which is signified by baptism, where we die to an old life and are reborn into new life.
Upon His own baptism, Jesus went directly into the wilderness to encounter the evil one for forty days.
The wilderness. It is where Mary spent the better part of her life, both qualitatively and quantitatively. It is where St. Anthony the Great went and where St. Athanasius followed him.
"The monk's eyes are on the desert," wrote the Trappist Thomas Merton. "His ears are attuned to distant mountains where the armies of God do battle with the powers of darkness, of which this world is but a pale reflection."
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.