Mary of Egypt

Mary of Egypt lived in Alexandria seventeen hundred years ago, and for most of her young life she was lost to herself. Then one day, in front of a church in Jerusalem, the Mother of God touched her heart, and Mary fell in love with the Lord. She walked into the desert beyond the Jordan and stayed there forty-seven years, praying. The Church reads her story every year during Great Lent, because she shows us, beautifully, that no one is too far gone for the love of Christ to find them.

Mary left her parents’ home at twelve and went to Alexandria. For seventeen years she gave herself to whatever the city offered, sinking deeper into a life that left her empty. The Church does not hide this part of her story. The Church tells it because it is precisely the part that grace meets. The Lord was with her even then, watching her, waiting for the moment her heart would open. He never gives up on anyone.

One summer she watched a crowd of pilgrims heading to the sea. They were sailing to Jerusalem for the great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Mary wanted to go too — not to venerate the Cross, but for the men on the ship. So she sold her body for the fare, and went. The Lord, in his beautiful patience, was already drawing her toward the Cross by the very thing she meant for sin.

On the morning of the Feast, Mary went with the crowds toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Everyone walked in. Mary tried to step through the doorway and could not. Some unseen, gentle force held her back. She tried again. And again. Three or four times, the others passed through and she was held at the threshold. Then she understood: it was her sins. She was being shown them not to crush her but to wake her. She slipped to the side of the porch and began to weep.

On the porch, Mary lifted her eyes and saw an icon of the Mother of God. Trembling, she prayed: "Most Holy Lady, I know I am unworthy. But God became man to call sinners to repentance. Help me. Let me in. If you let me see the Cross, I promise I will leave the world and follow wherever you lead." She felt the kindness of the Mother of God flow into her heart. She walked back to the door. This time she went in without difficulty. She venerated the True Cross. She came back to the icon, weeping with gratitude. And then she heard a quiet voice: "If you cross the Jordan, you will find rest."

Mary left the city with three coins someone had given her. She bought three loaves of bread, asked which way to the Jordan, and walked. At the church of St. John the Baptist on the river, she received the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, washed in the river, ate half a loaf, and slept on the bank. In the morning she crossed over. She lived in that desert for forty-seven years and never crossed back. Three coins, three loaves, one prayer to the Mother of God — and a whole new life began.

Mary was honest with the priest who later found her: the early years were terribly hard. The same passions that had ruled her in Alexandria came pursuing her into the desert. She would weep on the ground, calling out to the Mother of God for help. And again and again, a great Light would surround her, and the temptations would scatter. After seventeen years of struggle, the Light remained, and the storm was over. The Mother of God had carried her through.

A holy old monk named Zosimas, who had grown a little proud of his prayer life, was sent by an angel to a monastery near the Jordan to learn humility. During Lent, he wandered into the desert hoping to meet someone holier than himself. He walked for twenty days, and then he saw a small figure in the distance. It was Mary. She knew his name without being told. She knew his life. She asked him to throw her his cloak so she could cover herself, and they fell down before each other, each begging the other’s blessing. The Lord had brought them together so that her hidden life might be made known to the Church.

When Mary received Holy Communion from Abba Zosimas at the bank of the Jordan, she lifted her hands toward heaven and said these words — the same words the holy elder Simeon had spoken when he held the Christ-child in his arms. Her whole life had been the long waiting for this moment, and now it had come.

Mary had asked Zosimas to bring her Holy Communion the next year, on Great and Holy Thursday, at the edge of the Jordan. Zosimas came faithfully, carrying the Holy Mysteries. He stood on the riverbank and waited. At last he saw her on the far side. There was no boat. She made the sign of the Cross over the water and walked across to him — just as Christ had walked on the Sea of Galilee. He gave her Communion. She prayed the prayer of Simeon. Then she crossed back, made the sign of the Cross again over the water, and disappeared into the desert.

Mary had asked Zosimas to come back to the same spot in the desert in a year’s time. When he came, he found her body lying with arms folded, her face turned toward the east. Beside her head, written in the dust, was a message: "Abba Zosimas, bury here the body of humble Mary. Pray for me. I reposed on the very night I received the Mysteries." The Lord had taken her home the very night of the Last Supper. Zosimas wept over her, and a great lion appeared to dig her grave with its claws so that she could be buried. The lion went its way, and Zosimas returned to his monastery to tell the brothers what the Lord had done.

The Church reads Mary’s story every Lent because she is for all of us. Whatever we have done, however lost we feel, however many years we have given to things that have not loved us back — the Lord is still standing at the door, the Mother of God is still praying for us, the desert is still waiting to receive us. Mary is in heaven now, alive in Christ, praying for every soul that hears her story. She knows what it is to be where you have been. She loves you.