Hebrews 9:11-14
Psalm 130:1-8
Mark 10:32-45
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"The cup that I drink, you will drink."
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. |
This week we enter our eighth week of pilgrimage to a tomb. Pilgrimage is a time for telling tales. Just ask Geoffrey Chaucer and his Canterbury pilgrims. As pilgrimage is about leaving the worldly life behind, inevitably, these tales include egregious examples of profligacy, even stories where God is mocked and in the coarsest terms .... consider Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale."
My story this morning is also about egregious sin, and it is coarse. It is about a high-school age girl who brings to mind a pop song: "Girls just want to have fun." But the boys in her small town bore her. Most are too pious, too conventional. So at age twelve she runs away from home to the big city and immediately fulfills her fantasy: she has sex with the first man she meets. She is destined to become very popular with all the men. As she admitted later, she was the girl who never said "No." And wherever she went, she scanned for new men, sizing up all the varieties of men she saw and picking out her next adventure.
She had lived this fast, city life for seventeen years when she noticed a crowd buying tickets for an upcoming sea voyage. "Where are they going?" she asked a man standing near to her. He told her they were bound for a famous city where men from all over the world would be gathering. She instantly knew that this was the place for her and secured passage on the ship in exchange for sexual favors.
When she arrived to the destination city, she resumed her previous custom of picking up strange men and permitting them to entertain her. But soon, she learned that the "friends" she had made aboard ship were going to an event at a famous site in the city. She resolved go with them. The next morning she joined the flood people streaming through the doors of the famous site. But as she reached the threshold, she was unable to enter. Later she said that it were as if a whole detachment of Roman Legions were blocking her path. The friends had told her that the site was the holiest place on earth. Only curiosity and a desire for festive company had prompted her to go with them. After all, she thought, what does "holy" mean? Isn't it just a figment of the imagination? Does it really mean anything? But something very real was happening to her. An unseen and powerful force prevented her from coming anywhere near to the holy. It was not anything subjective — not an emotional feeling or a little nausea or vertigo. It was a force, an invisible wall, which she could not surpass. And then something else happened: the overwhelming, incommensurable purity of the place became known to her, and for the first time in her life, she became aware of her own extreme, impurity. She could not stand the stench that she now perceived leaching out of her from every pore. She had encountered an ultimate purity. And this enabled her to see herself as she really was: as impure as someone could possibly be.
Perhaps some hearing this story will say, "Yes, a tale of our times." And who would dispute that? Here is another one that should seem familiar.
A small group of priests had formed a fellowship around one whom everyone believed would become great, perhaps the Ecumenical Patriarch of the universal Church. Some other priests had bet their future on other leaders, but this small band was sure that their mentor would ascend above all. Now, to be truthful, while they did follow him, they were often distracted while he was teaching them, pondering their great futures and all the wonderful things that lay ahead for them simply by being his disciples. They were getting in on the ground floor! One of them, an impulsive, unthinking sort of man, would seek out the mentor from time to time and say, "Look here, I've thrown all of my support behind you, sacrificing future prospects that could have been directed elsewhere. What's in it for me?" And then there were two others, of a more precise and calculating disposition, who would sit around the family table at night (they were brothers) staring at the "chess board" of ecclesiastical preferment, plotting out their future careers. Yet another man was jealous of the mentor. Jealousy and envy burned in his heart to the point of rage. Consequently, though the mentor had done nothing to provoke it, he sought revenge, for he hated being "second best." He did not want to follow, but to lead. So he became a kind of "espionage mole" going to the mentor's rivals who sought to destroy the teacher. In general, each priest in this small band was too preoccupied with himself to notice the increasingly obvious signs that their mentor soon would die. The careful and calculating brothers did notice and decided to meet with their teacher privately. As they were religious men, we might have expected them to console him, to be present to him, to minister to him. But, no. Instead of these acts of kindness, even basic pastoral ministry, they feared that their mentor would die before they had a chance to petition him. They said to him, "Before you die, fix it for us so that we may become bishops!"
A tale of our times? Of corrupt men feathering their nests in an unholy Church? Well, yes. But it is also the tale of Jesus and His Disciples taken directly from the Gospels. And the story of the twelve-year old girl, who embarked on a seventeen-year adventure of compulsive promiscuity? That is the story of St. Mary of Egypt, born in the fourth century.
She was born in a provincial Egyptian town, then ran away to Alexandria for the sole purpose of having sex with as many men as she could. Later, she journeyed north along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean to Jerusalem, driven on by sexual curiosity and unsated desire, for she heard that men from all over the world — black men, brown men, white men, tall men, all men — would be there. But during her sea voyage, which she had procured in exchange for sex, she learned that the pilgrims aboard the ship were going to the Holy City in order to adore the True Cross. When the time came for adoration, she resolved to go with the crowd through the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where the Holy Cross, recently discovered by the Empress Helena, would be exposed for public veneration. Following the flow of the crowd that was streaming in, suddenly she was stopped in her tracks. Stopped cold! She could not advance forward, for an invisible force-field would not let her pass! It was there, so close to the The Holy, where, for the first time, she saw herself as she really was. All lies would be brushed aside now — all narratives, all excuses, all self-explanations and justifications rejected. She was faced with her true self. Every detail of every filthy deed she had done now descended before her face, and she felt so covered in filth that she gasped for breath, smothered.
Truly, nothing had changed. Her surroundings and the air around her were just as they had been a minute ago. Yet, now, nothing would be the same. What was happening? Holiness. She stood near to the presence of the Most Holy, to the True Cross of our Savior, and to the empty tomb.
Without meaning to do so, she had embarked on a religious pilgrimage, we might say a Lenten journey, to Jerusalem. She too had begun down a path leading to the door of a tomb. Indeed, she stood near to the tomb. It would turn out to be a divine appointment of the utmost importance, a matter of life and death, of her eternal salvation. And she received as her prize one of life's greatest blessings, which is to see ourselves as we really are, as God sees us, in all of our truth and in crystal clarity.
Nearby, she saw an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. She fell to her knees and offered up a most sincere and contrite prayer:
| "O Lady, Mother of God, who gave birth in the flesh to God the Word, I know, O how well I know, that it is no honour or praise to thee when one so impure and depraved as I look up to thine icon, O Ever-virgin, who didst keep thy body and soul in purity. Rightly do I inspire hatred and disgust before thy virginal purity. But I have heard that God Who was born of thee became man on purpose to call sinners to repentance. Then help me, for I have no other help. Order the entrance of the church to be opened to me. Allow me to see the venerable Tree on which He Who was born of thee suffered in the flesh and on which He shed His Holy Blood for the redemption of sinners and for me, unworthy as I am. Be my faithful witness before thy Son that I will never again defile my body by the impurity of fornication, but as soon as I have seen the Tree of the Cross I will renounce the world and its temptations and will go wherever thou wilt lead me." |
| "I went down to the Jordan and rinsed my face and hands in its holy waters. I partook of the holy and life-giving Mysteries in the Church of the Forerunner .... Then, after drinking some water from Jordan, I lay down and passed the night on the ground. In the morning I found a small boat and crossed to the opposite bank. I again prayed to Our Lady to lead me whither she wished. Then I found myself in this desert, and since then up to this very day, I have been estranged from all." |
Forty-seven years later, God set into the heart of hieromonk, Zosima, a penitential journey. Unlike St. Mary of Egypt, St. Zosima had been perfect in every ascetic practice and imagined that no monk on earth could be his equal, nor could anyone teach him anything he had not already learned. This pairing of St. Mary of Egypt to St. Zosima is not quite analogous to Jesus' parable of the penitent tax collector and the proud Pharisee, but that is the general pattern. For Zosima is destined to learn that he has only just scratched the surface of spiritual journey as compared to this desert mother. He is to be the first human St. Mary would meet in nearly half a century:
| ... he suddenly saw to the right of the hillock on which he stood the semblance of a human body. At first he was confused thinking he beheld a vision of the devil, and even started with fear. But, having guarded himself with the sign of the Cross and banishing all fear, he turned his gaze in that direction and in truth saw a form gliding southwards. The form was naked, the skin dark as if burned up by the heat of the sun, and the hair on its head white as fleece, not long, falling just below its neck. Zosima was so overjoyed at beholding a human form that he ran after it in pursuit, but the form fled from him. He followed. At length, when he was near enough to be heard, he shouted: "Why do you run from an old man and a sinner? Slave of the True God, wait for me, whoever you are, in God's name I tell you, for the love of God for Whose sake you are living in the desert." "Forgive me for God's sake, but I cannot turn towards you and show you my face, Abba Zosima. For I am a woman and naked as you see with the uncovered shame of my body. But if you would like to fulfill one wish of a sinful woman, throw me your cloak so that I can cover my body and can turn to you and ask for your blessing." Here, terror seized Zosima, for he heard that she called him by name. But he realized that she could not have done so, knowing nothing of him, without the power of spiritual insight. He at once did as she asked. He took off his old, tattered cloak and threw it to her, turning away as he did so. She picked it up and was able to cover at least a part of her body. |
One year later, he returned with Holy Communion but found that St. Mary had died shortly after receiving the Holy Mysteries the previous year. Even after an entire year, her remains were incorrupt. And the carrion-eating birds had not disturbed her as a lion guarded her body.
Certainly, these are tales for our times: indiscriminate sexual licentiousness and a story of corruption in the Church, careerism, and priests willing to do anything in order to fulfill their selfish ambitions. The life of St. Mary of Egypt in particular is a shining beacon to our young people today. Yes, many of them have made mistakes. Yes, many deeply regret the things they have done .... to the point that their shame leads them back into drugs and alcohol, restarting the cycle of degradation once more. Yet, one of the greatest saints of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church was a woman who made mistakes — thousands of them! But the pure and inviolate wilderness she entered, the place of healing and restoration, continues to await anyone who would go out to seek God. These are timeless: both the cities built by the descendants of Cain and the desert places where God and the angels await to console a truly broken heart.
St. Mary of Egypt lay prostrate before the world's great compass: the Cross, where perfect mercy intersects with perfect justice. And the years she would spend wrestling with her temptations would be precisely equal to the years she spent indulging her lusts. As she told Zosima,
| "And how shall I tell you, O Abba, of the thoughts that pushed me towards lust once more? A fire was kindled in my miserable heart which seemed to burn me up completely and to awaken within 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 accuser, who had appeared out of my disobedience, threatening punishment for my crimes. 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. .... And thus I lived for seventeen years amidst the constant danger of temptation." |
It is the timeliness of this story for us,
one thousand six hundred years later (!),
which makes this the tale of our greatest hope.
For we see in St. Mary of Egypt the promise of the spiritual life.
Praying and fasting does lead to holiness.
Giving oneself over to godly devotions will lead down the path of theosis, becoming more and more like God
and thence to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our own pilgrimage to the door of a tomb, where our own former life dies, is worthy and good and right and reliable and timeless.
For these are the Promises of Christ.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.