Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark
10:32-45
It is easy to fall prey to the temptation of thinking that there is simply no point in trying to reorient our lives toward the Lord because of how profoundly we have weakened and defiled ourselves through sin. Perhaps we—alone among all people-- are simply too far gone to find our way home like the prodigal son, we may think. Maybe no amount of repentance would be sufficient for us to receive God’s healing mercy. On this last Sunday of Great Lent, the Church calls us to put such foolish and prideful notions out of our minds as we celebrate how our Righteous Mother Mary of Egypt became a glorious saint, despite her previously wretched way of life. In her brutally honest account of her youth, Mary describes how she had from the age of twelve endured the miserable existence of a sex addict. She had refused money for her innumerable encounters with men and said that she “had an insatiable desire and an irrepressible passion for lying in filth. This was life to me. Every kind of abuse of nature I regarded as life.” Though we do not know why she left her parents’ home at a young age, she may well have been a victim of sexual abuse. She confessed forcing herself on “youths even against their own will” as she sailed to Jerusalem and said that she was actually “hunting for youths” on the streets on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross when she followed the crowds to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
When an
invisible force prevented Mary from entering the Church in order to venerate
the Cross, her eyes were opened to her wretchedness and she pleaded for the
help of the Theotokos in finding salvation.
Thus began her almost 50 years of intense ascetical struggle in the
desert. By the time Father Zosima
stumbled upon her, Mary had become so radiant with holiness that she walked on water, rose above the ground in prayer, was
clairvoyant, and knew the Scriptures, even though she had never read them. Pride and self-centeredness had no place in
her soul, as she was aware only of her sinfulness and ongoing need for the
Lord’s mercy. Mary was not focused on
achieving any earthly goal, but instead on doing whatever was necessary for her
to find healing and restoration as a beloved daughter of the Lord, a living
icon of Christ.
We live in an age of superficial religion
in which many are more concerned with using their faith to advance earthly
agendas of various kinds than with finding the healing of their souls through the
difficult journey of persistent repentance.
That is not a new problem, for our Lord’s disciples betrayed, denied,
and abandoned Him because they finally realized that He was not going to become
a conventional political ruler who would satisfy their desires for earthly glory
with victory over the Roman Empire. As
today’s gospel reading shows, even as the Savior predicted His Passion, the
disciples James and John were jockeying for position by asking for places of
prominence when He came into power. They
had no idea what they were asking, of course, for the path to our Lord’s
Kingdom requires taking up our crosses in union with His great Self-Offering.
Doing so has nothing to do with gaining power in the world, but requires
persistent, humble obedience whereby we open ourselves to receive the healing
divine mercy of the Lord. Through the
struggle of reorienting ourselves to the blessedness of a Kingdom not of this
world, we will learn not to entrust our hearts to the false gods of this world,
but will instead gain the strength to manifest Christ’s selfless love for our neighbors. “For
the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as
a ransom for many.”
The weeks of Lent teach us that prayer, fasting,
almsgiving, and other spiritual disciplines are not tools to help us achieve an
earthly goal. Instead, they are simply
ways of offering our lives to the Lord for Him to do with as is best according
to His love for us. Our great difficulty
in embracing them reveals how far we are from fulfilling our calling to become
like God in holiness. To recognize that
truth and still persist in repentance will inevitably require suffering because
we must then embrace the inevitable tension between the current sick state of
our souls and the divine blessedness that is our calling. Such suffering is not a punishment, but a
natural consequence of enduring the struggle to accept personally our
restoration through Christ as His beloved sons and daughters, as His beautiful
living icons.
Thanks be to God, St. Mary of Egypt did not allow the
hurt pride called shame to keep her from facing the truth about her spiritual
state or from taking up her cross in the way that was necessary for her
salvation. She did not accept the lie
that she simply needed to accept and act on her inclinations in order to be
true to herself. Neither did she try to distract
herself from them by serving the vain illusions of earthly kingdoms. Instead, she had the humble courage to
entrust herself fully to the ministry of the “High Priest of the good
things to come…[Who] through His own blood, entered in once for all into the
holy place, having found eternal redemption.” Her
example shows that absolutely nothing we have done, said, or thought makes it
impossible for us to find the healing of our souls through Him. St. Mary of Egypt is a shining example of hope
for us all.
We
must, however, like her confront truthfully how we have sinned in order to open
our hearts to Christ for His healing. We
must all do that during this season of Lent in the holy mystery of Confession
so that we will gain the spiritual strength and clarity to follow our Lord to
His Cross and empty tomb. His own
disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him because they wanted a Messiah Who
would serve their agendas. As Christ
said, “the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the
scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the
Gentiles. And they will mock Him, and
scourge Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him; and after three days He will
rise.” Acquiring the spiritual health to
serve Him is no small matter and will not happened instantaneously. It has nothing to do with glorifying
ourselves or achieving any earthly goal.
It does, however, have everything to do with the persistent, humble obedience
shown by St. Mary of Egypt. Like her,
let us refuse to let anything keep us from confronting our personal brokenness
with brutal honesty as we take up our own crosses in faithfulness to the Savior
Who offered up Himself on the Cross for the salvation of the world. He alone is
our hope and the Victor over death.
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