Today April 2

Today is the feast of St. Mary of Egypt, not to be confused with St. Mary the Harlot (also of Egypt) even though she WAS a harlot. Sigh. Two different "fallen" women who ascended to the heights of sanctity.

Today's saint was a runaway who became a prostitute in Alexandria at the ripe old age of 12! She realized she could have gone back home (the OTHER St. Mary was an orphan, but not she), but fell prey to the sinful lifestyle for 17 years. At 29 she went with a party to Jerusalem, desiring to see the church of the holy sepulcher, not from any devotion but because it was the touristy thing to do . . . and besides, everybody else was doing it. Trouble was, an unseen force prevented her from entering. Try as she might, she couldn't penetrate the force-field-like entryway. She retired to the courtyard and looked up at an icon of the Virgin Mary. In tears, she prayed the prayer of repentance and she heard a woman's heavenly voice: "Cross Jordan and thou shalt find rest." Immediately she set out. Stopping by a bakery to get some rolls, she asked where the Jordan River was. Little did she know it was the last human interaction she would have for 47 years! Not to mention the last bread she would ever taste! She repaired to beyond the river, subsisting on edible plants and dates, praying and doing penance. Tortured by heat, cold and thirst, she outlived her clothes. They rotted off, she went naked. But she had consolations, too: though illiterate, she learned the mysteries of faith through some kind of mystical absorption. Her temptations were lessened after 17 years due, she said, to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, for whom she had a great devotion.

Disciples of the priest Zosimus found her and reported to him. He went to her, heeding her request to throw her his cloak since she was naked. She requested Holy Communion, which he went and gave her, after which she knelt in deep devotion and pronounced the Nunc Dimittis ("Lord, now you let your servant go in peace . . ."). She asked him to return in a year on Maundy (Holy) Thursday. But when he returned nearly a year later, he only found her body, with these words etched in the earth near it: "Father Zosimus, bury the body of lowly Mary. Render earth to earth and pray for me. I died the night of the Lord's Passion, after receiving the divine and mystic Banquet." The astonished priest did as he was requested, not before retrieving his cloak as a holy relic. This took place in the 5th century and was recorded in the annals of St. Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem in the year 638.