The Standing of St. Mary of Egypt is the popular name of the long matins service celebrated in the fifth week of the Great Lent. We hear the full text of the Great Canon of Repentance of Saint Andrew of Crete and we read the life of the Venerable Mary of Egypt. Saint Mary of Egypt stands out from the other saints of our Church. She is the only saint commemorated for seven days before the Pascha.
Her life is read simultaneously at every Orthodox church. It describes many miracles that she wrought. She walked on water. For forty-seven years, she lived in the desert on scant food and without a change of clothes. She hovered in the air. She knew the Holy Scripture without reading it once. The elder Zosima was their only witness, and he narrated them to us.
But there is one miracle of which we are all beholders. She transformed from a great sinner, a harlot, into a pure and righteous woman. Her past life became non-existent, and her sins were expunged. She recast herself as a great saint and entered the gates of heaven with the pure and righteous.
A handpainted icon of Saint Mary of Egypt created in St Elisabeth Convent
Appreciate the extent of the change that happened in her. Who has never promised oneself to start a new life from Monday? Now those who have acted on this promise and turned their lives around will know how difficult it must have been for Saint Mary of Egypt. She was not getting rid of some irritating habit but breaking with her past life. To her, it was a complete change of heart, a rebirth of the spirit, a healing of the soul by an act of utter repentance that no man or woman could accomplish on their own.
At church, many lighted candles stand before her icon. Scores of outcast, despicable souls come before her image and realise that sin is the only thing that the Lord hates; but anyone who turns away from sin becomes His beloved child, for whom there is more joy in heaven than for someone with no need to repent. By finding peace with God, we recover our lost dignity and our likeness to our Creator. In Him, we find peace and salvation.
Priest Vitaly Vorona,
Prior of the Church of the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God in Kramatorsk, Ukraine
