St. Mary of Egypt
Mary left her parents when she was twelve years old; she went to Alexandria. For the next seventeen years, she lived as one addicted to sex. Some call her a prostitute, but she often refused payment for sex, and made a living at times working with flax or begging.
Eager for new adventures, when she met some men traveling to Jerusalem, she asked to go there with them, hoping to find, among other things, new sexual partners in the Holy City. Since she had no money, she offered herself as payment to the pilgrims, and they accepted.
When she got to Jerusalem, she spent a few days in her usual way of life, until she felt a desire to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to attend the celebration. While others entered the church, she felt something invisible barring her from entry; she couldn’t get in! Seeing an image of the Blessed Mother, she repented and asked the Virgin Mary for help. After that, she tried again to enter the church, and this time got right in. She venerated the Life-Giving Cross, and, leaving, stopped by the icon of the Blessed Mother to give thanks. There she heard a mysterious voice telling her to go into the desert, where she would find true peace. On her way, she acquired three loaves of bread, and there in the desert she lived for 47 years alone, praying to God.
At that time, an angel appeared to a devout monk, Father Zosimas, and instructed him to go into the desert. Fr. Zosimas understood he would find someone more spiritually advanced than he, but expected to find this person in a monastery. Wandering into the desert, he saw in the distance a blackened person with white hair. Knowing that the desert was reputed to be a place where demons wandered, he apprehensively approached the person.
The person, Mary, called to Fr. Zosimas by name, and asked him for his cloak, since she was without clothes. Curious about her, Fr. Zosimas knew he was in the presence of a living saint, although she asked for his blessing, since she was “only a woman and a sinner” and he was a priest. As they talked, Mary, an illiterate woman, quoted the scriptures, which she had never seen and in any case could never have read. They agreed to meet the next year, on Holy Thursday on the bank of the Jordan, where Fr. Zosimas was to bring her holy communion, but was not to cross the river.
That next year, as Fr. Zosimas sat and watched, night fell and a full moon began to rise. Suddenly he saw Mary standing on the opposite bank. She made the sign of the cross, and walked across the Jordan River as if on dry land. After receiving Holy Communion, Mary asked Fr. Zosimas to meet her again one year later, again on Holy Thursday, but this time where they had originally met, twenty days’ journey into the desert.
As requested, Fr. Zosimas went the next year, and found Mary’s dead body next to a message she had written in the sand, where she explained that she had died on the very day in which she took part of the immaculate Mysteries (Holy Communion), and asked him to pray for her. Fr. Zosimas was amazed that she had made that twenty-day journey into the desert in one night. Fr. Zosimas was an old man, and had no strength to dig her grave; suddenly, a lion appeared, and dug furiously until there was a hole big enough for Mary’s body. After Fr. Zosimas buried her, the lion bowed to him, and they parted ways.
As the Lord glorified St. Mary of Egypt, so does the Lord glorify those who repent of their sins.
18:21 "But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.
18:22 "None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.
18:23 "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord God, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?"
(From the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel)
Wikipedia: Mary of Egypt
Monachos.net: Mary of Egypt, Complete Life by Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem"
Greek Orthodox Archdioces of Australia: St. Mary of Egypt
Father Alexander: Lives of Saints, March and April
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America: Mary of Egypt
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