The Ascent to Pascha
We cannot sink so deeply into the darkness that the light of grace cannot reach us.
THE SUNDAY OF SAINT MARY OF EGYPT
How deep into the darkness must we fall before the light can no longer reach us? What wickedness or what vice puts us beyond the reach of the love of God and of redemption?
There can be no place in the universe where God is not present; there can be no darkness which His light does not penetrate. There are neither boundaries nor barriers to the love and mercy of God. There is no limit to the grace of the Holy Spirit.
That is what this “Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt” is designed to reveal to us.
Today we learned once more, from the life of our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt, that our weaknesses are our most loyal friends. Our weaknesses never desert or abandon us. They are always with us, and they can grow so powerful within us that they become genuine addictions and begin to consume our lives.. In the life of St. Mary of Egypt, we learn both the power of addiction and the power of repentance and the power of a determination to seek the grace of the Holy Spirit in order to become liberated.
The power of addiction is astonishing. As one becomes addicted, the chemistry of the brain is actually altered, and there are even structural changes in the brain. Some addictions can be controlled, but few can be cured. Addictions that have been developed and strengthened over many years often cannot be controlled under any normal circumstances. They may destroy the addicted person and those around them who become enveloped in them.
Confronting such addictions and struggling against them requires enormous courage and dedication. An Orthodox Christian who is enmeshed in such addiction will prayerfully seek the help of the Holy Spirit in such a struggle. We sometimes find ourselves consumed, completely controlled by a passion and there is little consolation or contentment to us after we have fulfilled the passion. It simply fills a momentary void so that we get can have a moment's peace, a momentary sense of pleasure.
When we finally reach such a point of desperation tht we turn to God in prayer, realise the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we can be guided by grace to find an inner strength within us that we did not know was there. Drawing out this inner strength, grace can support our struggle as we seek to invoke and utilize this inner strength. Our loss of self-respect can be so great that we do not realise that we deserve self-respect and that we must find it once more in order to overcome our vices and addictions and find liberation into an authenticity of life.
The struggle for liberation must begin with a full acknowledgement of the problem and a determination to take responsibility for confronting it. This usually requires a special impetus. An addicted person who draws others into the manifestations of the addiction often requires isolation from other people in order to control and struggle against the addiction.
Such was the case of St. Mary of Egypt, who had developed a a powerful sexual addiction in her youth and steadily reinforced it with constant gratification. She was sexually addicted to such a degree that her whole life was completely consumed by it and she lived for nothing else.
By any human standards, her situation was insurmountable and hopeless. Seeing the hidden courage and the possibilities in her and foreseeing how completely she would give herself over to struggle, to the point of becoming a great saint and inspiration to others that would help to deliver them from such bondage, in the fullness of time, God intervened.
We all know the life of Saint Mary of Egypt so we will not re-tell it here. It will doubtless be retold in the sermon. Rather we will seek to understand why one Sunday of Great Lent is devoted to her memory and what sort of spiritual strength and guidance this is intended to impart to us as we enter the last week before the solemnity of the holy week.
The life and example of St. Mary of Egypt is given to us as we begin this final week of Great Lent before entering Holy Week in order to assure us that forgiveness is available to all no matter what kind of addictions, vices, and sins we may have fallen into. Her struggle was extreme because her bondage to her addiction was so extreme and powerful, but we are shown that, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, any addiction and vice can be overcome with struggle and cooperation with that grace. We are being encouraged through her to assess ourselves carefully, discern those addictions and vices within us, and redouble our struggle during this final week of preparation for great and holy Pascha.
We will speak more about Holy Week after the commemoration of the Entry into Jerusalem next Sunday, formally inaugurating the struggle of Holy Week.
One may ask, if Mary had overcome her addiction and become already a saint, why did she remain in the wilderness alone until the end of her life? It may be that she had found a life of peace, joy and meaning, being filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit and having experienced such great spiritual joy and such peace there in the wilderness that she did not want to leave it but wanted to stay there living together with nothing more than the grace of the Holy Spirit, feeling the immediate presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in her life.
We, meanwhile,We are given hope of the help of the Holy Spirit if we will open our hearts to it. And we are given the assurace of God’s mercy and foregivness, no matter what vices and addictions we are strugging with. We are given hope of the help of the Holy Spirit if we will open our hearts to it.
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