On this last Sunday before Great Week, we stand before a unique model of divine love represented by Mary of Egypt. Mary was not merely a penitent; rather, she was a lover, and the object of her love was singular. Today is the Sunday of love; the lover here is the human being, represented by Mary of Egypt, as a lover of the Bridegroom who is Jesus.
Mary of Egypt was a beautiful young woman from Egypt, and from her story we know that she was a fornicatress. Mary possessed a heart overflowing with desire, but she sought to quench it from broken cisterns; she was not seeking money, but rather the pleasure of life through the body. This is the key that will unlock the mystery of her transformation later, for the one who possessed this heat in seeking pleasure is the very one who will carry the same heat in seeking the face of Jesus. She decided to go to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and during her journey she had no money, so she paid for the journey with her body. When she arrived at Jerusalem and wanted to enter, she was unable; there was someone preventing her from entering and prostrating. She realized at that moment that there is a different world that requires inner purity for her to be able to enter it. At the door of the church, the will of the ignorant Mary collided with the saving divine beauty, and there she realized that God does not prevent her from entering, but calls her to change. She realized that her sin is not a breaking of a law, but a deviation of the heart. She realized that she had eaten of the fruit that God forbade Adam to eat; she ate of pleasure in order to live, but she was not quenched — rather, she fell.
When she remembered herself, she wept and asked the Virgin to allow her to enter and prostrate, then promised her that she would go to the desert. And indeed she prostrated, and by her prostration we recall that prostration is a covenant, just as we prostrated to the precious Cross two weeks ago. She took a covenant to return to Christ, and she went to the desert and remained there forty years, not to say merely “forgive me my sin”, but to say “Behold, O Lord, my heart is Yours.” The life of the saint recalls that during these years she fought the old memories and the sounds of the songs she had heard; this period was a period of struggle. For love here is not an ecstasy of joy; rather, love is a continuous struggle for change. Mary did not extinguish her fire, but changed the direction of the flame; she exchanged the love of the body for the love of Jesus, and her thirst for passing pleasure for her thirst for the cup of life, and the love of the forbidden fruit of which Eve ate for the love of the delicious fruit of the vine. Mary teaches us today that we must not fight our passions to kill them, but to redirect them, for the energy we use on the path of sin is the very same energy that will lead us to holiness.
By love here I do not mean that religious romanticism, that love which spreads in Protestant theological thought — “my beloved Jesus” — among adolescents; the love of adolescents built on fluctuating emotions and passions, whereas the love of the mature is the love of decision: a responsible love through which the lover gives blood and struggles to change despite the many sins of the past. Despite all our sins, Mary teaches us that man is able to come out of the swamp of sin to become a great saint, for Mary did not become a saint because she was perfect, but because she was sincere in her love. God does not measure man by years of fasting or by the number of prayers, but by the warmth of the heart. And the most important thing in repentance: do not come to Jesus out of fear, but come to Him because you love His face.
Mary opens for us today the door of repentance and love, just as the door of divine love was opened when she entered the church of Jerusalem. Repentance is not fear of a judge, but a longing for a face, because it is the overflow of love. Mary opens the door, and we must choose and decide where we want to place our hearts, for Jesus calls out: “My son, give Me your heart; My son, grant Me your love.”