This Sunday of the breathtaking life of Saint Mary of Egypt is commemorated and presented to us sinners as an example of heroic hope in the mercy of the Lord and the heights it can raise us to.

The boundlessly sinful woman who took all in lust now boundlessly gives herself to Love. Our unity with Christ is a wedding that gives life, rather than take away. She exemplifies the beauty of Catholic sexuality, and in that light sheds even greater light on the “no-no’s” of the Church that everyone in their worldly thinking sees as discrimination. We don’t look at the No’s as if they were the meaning of our life. We don’t look at what we must not do but what we should be doing and always in better ways! Fear of death is an imperfect way of avoiding sin (just as in Confession’s contrition). It is LOVE that must draw us to God, and naturally this means away from any disfigurement (sin) of His Image in us and the beauty of His works.

Saint Mary reflects the harrowing difference between a sterile taking away of someone else’s treasure for our pleasure (her previous life) vs. the fertile and life-giving love that draws us out of ourselves to give this self to another as the height of our Matrimonial unity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of Matrimony’s purpose as being two things: to get yourself and the other to Heaven, and participating in God’s creating act by making souls for Heaven. It doesn’t talk about “he’s handsome and I get butterflies” or “she’s pretty and I like her”. These are natural feelings and beautiful in the right place. However, to follow them as the primary source and goal of our sexual love is a blasphemy against the Sacrament of Matrimony and our Crowning as mutual martyrs for the sake of Love. It is like saying “I am not a Christian, I see the Eucharist, I don’t think about God but I receive Him because the Host tastes good.” What a blasphemy and a sorrowful misunderstanding of the treasure unfolding in the Sacrament!

Saint Mary of Egypt who had known the entirety of worldly pleasures and a sexuality given to lust, finally in one moment of Grace understood that the true Love everyone is called to have and experience is the One hanging on the Cross. She represents a soul that crucifies itself and all the worldliness within it to be raised in Christ from the tomb of sin. And the means for this is always the Cross. A soul that crucifies its plans and picture-perfect future to raise that “unplanned” life growing in her womb. A soul that crucifies its pride and false expectations of what it “deserves” in order to refrain from insulting but rather raising the other. A soul that crucifies its pleasure and rest to stick with its family and maintain a tiresome job to raise the kids. So on…

I was going to say that this Sunday is the last Sunday before Palm Sunday and Pascha which are both feasts. But I had forgotten that every Sunday is a feast. Every illness, every struggle, every sigh is a joy for the Christian. Every Sunday we had seen was preparing us for the Resurrection. We were learning that the Cross is our Salvation, that we can climb the ladder of sanctity through ascetical effort rooted in Christ, and that the highest way maintaining all other efforts is the Asceticism of Humility and Love that removes all that is prideful in us. Today, Saint Mary’s life reminds us that nobody is farther than the reaches of Hope and Mercy, and that for all of us who had thought we were, it takes one. moment. of. humble. repentance. If you go to Confession today, or call a priest “for a chat about things”, or start the Fast today, or wherever you are right now in the spiritual life begin an honest effort, then you too will prepare your soul to lay all its false garments hiding the shame of our Fall before Christ. You too will remove the old garment of disobedience and lay it before the New Adam who will be crucified by His perfect obedience naked on the Cross, recalling the First Image when we were free, unashamed of our nakedness, and walking with the Lord in Eden. You too will call to Him: “Hosanna!”