Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark
10:32-45
The more clearly that we see our personal brokenness, the more tempted we may be to think that there is simply no point in trying to reorient our lives toward the Lord. Perhaps we are simply too far gone to come to our senses and find our way home like the prodigal son, we may think. Perhaps no amount of repentance could ever enable 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, St. 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.
So much religion in our world today
is merely a smattering of pious platitudes intended to help people feel better
about indulging their passions, including the desire to dominate and condemn people
they fear or resent. 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 over anyone in this 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 our passions and will instead gain the strength
to manifest Christ’s merciful, selfless love for our neighbors, regardless of
who they are. As He said, “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 healing. Our great difficulty in embracing them shows 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 experience
the inevitable tension between the corruption and weakness of our souls and the
blessedness and strength to which the Lord calls us. Such suffering is not a punishment but simply
the consequence of enduring the struggle to accept personally our restoration
through Christ as His beautiful living icons.
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, habits, and compulsions in order
to be true to herself. She did not distract
herself from confronting her sins by condemning others or trying to distort
religion in order to gain anything in this world. 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.
Like
her, we must confront truthfully how we have corrupted ourselves in order to
open our hearts to Christ for His healing.
His own disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him because they
wanted a Messiah Who would serve their desires for earthly power and
glory. 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 such
a Lord does not come easily to people like us who are so weakened spiritually
by slavery to our passions. That
is why we all need the holy mystery of Confession in Lent in order to gain the strength
necessary to follow our Lord to His Cross and empty tomb. Doing so has nothing to do with glorifying
ourselves or achieving any earthly goal.
It does have everything to do with acquiring the persistent, humble
obedience shown by St. Mary of Egypt. Like
her, we must refuse to let anything, including our own hurt pride, 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 for the salvation
of the world. He alone is our hope for healing from the ravages of sin and the
Victor over death.
