April 1, 2008

• April 1st

  April Fool’s Day? No. Today is the Feast Day of St. Mary of Egypt and the 15th anniversary of the day I found the lump in my neck that turned out to be stage II cancer- Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It is so hard to believe 15 years has passed. Fifteen years ago Fr. and I were just 2 days engaged and I was being sent for an x-ray. Fifteen years later we have been married 13 1/2 years are the parents of 4 healthy children, Fr. has served 4 parishes in two countries and has been a priest  11+ years. Where does the time go? Fifteen years cancer free, hard to believe but I am so grateful. Today is always an emotional day.  I am forever thankful for the prayers of St. Mary of Egypt and the power of the Holy Spirit,  who protected me and sent me to the doctor  after my  8am German history lecture at the University of Cincinnati instead of for a manicure to compliment my recently received engagement ring. I am forever grateful to Christ, who healed me, for the monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, England who prayed for me, for my friends and family who were there for me,  for my doctors – Dr. Michael Neuss, oncology nurse- Arleen Schumann and Dr. Robert Caldemeyer, and especially my mother who held it all together and handed me each and every pill for a year. I was so loopy from all the meds and crazy in love that I could have never kept track of all those pills, appointment, surgeries, scans, chemotherapy, radiation etc. without my mom. Thank you to my mom and thank you to my then fiance who flew back and forth from London, England- 8 times in one year and thank you to my dad who saved me from a  year of wedding planning when he agreed we should just go to Greece and be married- that was a glorious decision! St. Mary of Egypt, pray to God for all of us! May God grant us at least another 15 years of of good health and blessings!

  

  Icon of Saint Mary of Egypt, surrounded by scenes from her life (17th century, Beliy Gorod).

  St. Mary of Egypt

  April  1st and the  Fifth Sunday of Great Lent – St. Mary of Egypt lived between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th. She was a prostitute in Alexandria, and decided to join a pilgrimage sailing to the Holy Land, knowing that even holy pilgrims can be tempted. When they arrived in Jerusalem, she went with the pilgrims to visit the Church of the Resurrection on the feast of the Holy Cross, but she was unable to enter the doors of the church, as though an invisible hand was pushing her away. She tried four times to get in, but every time was prevented. Finally she began to realize how her sinful life was keeping her away from God. She saw the icon of the Mother of God above the doors of the church, and began to pray, weeping bitterly, repenting of her sins, and vowing to go wherever Christ might lead her if only she would be able to enter the church. Then she was allowed to go in. She fell at the feet of the Lord on the Holy Cross, realizing how God accepts true repentance. Returning to pray again in front of the icon of the Theotokos, she heard a voice tell her, “Cross the Jordan and you will find peace.” So she walked all day, till she came to the place on the Jordan River where John had baptized Jesus. In the church she received Holy Communion, then went into the desert to live as a hermit. For 47 years she lived in the desert, seeing no human beings and suffering horrible temptations as she tried to make up for the evil deeds of her early life. One year, during Great Lent, Father Zossima, a priest-monk from one of the monasteries of Palestine went out into the desert to fast and pray, as was the custom. He met Mary, hardly recognizing her as a woman or as a person at all. She asked his blessing and told her story, then asked him to return the next year to bring her Holy Communion, which she had not received all the time she was in the desert. The next year he returned, and brought her the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord. She went back into the desert and asked him to come again the next year. When he returned, he found her lying dead and a note she had written in the dirt. It said that she had died there immediately after receiving the Holy Eucharist the year before. Father Zossima prayed over her body and tried to dig a grave in which to bury her. But he had only a stick of wood and the ground was very hard. Exhausted, he sat down to rest. When he looked up, he saw a big lion licking the saint’s feet. Despite his fear, he approached the lion and found that it was friendly. The lion dug the grave with his powerful paws, and Fr Zossima buried St Mary there. The lion went peacefully into the desert and Fr Zossima returned to his monastery, where he told the story of St Mary of Egypt. It touched all of the monks in their hearts, so they kept her memory out of respect for her and out of love for God. Father Zossima died in the monastery when he was nearly 100 years old.

  The Life of St Mary of Egypt is often read together with portions of the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete.

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