On Repentance. St. Mary of Egypt

Photo: pdobro.ru When Christ, the Son of God began His public ministry, He started with the call to repentance: Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. From this it is clear that all who wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven must repent—without repentance, no one will enter.

The commandment to repent was fulfilled by the saints, who left behind many testimonies to the power and importance of repentance. “Do not think lightly of repentance,” says St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

“>St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. “Repentance is the soul of all ascetic labors; it is the general work that must breathe life into all other ascetic labors. Only those who remain in true repentance make true spiritual progress… The merciful Lord has prepared for us a wondrous, heavenly, eternal Kingdom. He has shown us the door through which we may enter the saving pasture of Spirit and Truth—the door of repentance. If we neglect repentance, we will, without a doubt, remain outside [of the Kingdom]. Good deeds that are natural, based on feelings, can in no way replace repentance…”

Man is a deeply fallen and corrupted being. By nature, we all inherit the genetic disease of Adam’s sin.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? we read in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah.

Venerable Macarius the Great of EgyptAfter he buried his wife, Macarius told himself, “Take heed, Macarius, and have care for your soul. It is fitting that you forsake worldly life.”

“>St. Macarius of Egypt says that since Adam’s fall, sin—like a deep abyss of bitterness—has taken hold of the soul of every person, filling it to its deepest recesses.

Those who claim that man is without sin are like people who are drowning in floodwaters but refuse to admit they are drowning.

Adam’s original sin is like a massive weight hanging around each of our necks, and to this burden we add our countless personal sins, as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. Thus, every person without exception is in need of repentance for his salvation. The Lord says in the Gospel that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Even a seemingly small sin is not something trivial or insignificant that has no real impact on a person. On the contrary, every sin is a deadly poison, which kills the soul and hands it over to the power of the devil. And from these deadly poisons, prepared in the laboratories of hell, there exists only one antidote—repentance.

What Is True Repentance?True repentance is impossible without the renewal of a constant petition, invocation, repentant falling, prayer, and supplication to the Heavenly Father. It’s also a sign of the forgiveness of sins—the constant turning of the mind and heart to God.

“>Repentance is the mystery of God’s infinite love. If God had not granted us repentance, no one would be saved—all without exception would perish in hell. For there are laws in the spiritual world, just as there are in the physical world. According to these spiritual laws, a person who commits sin must be punished—both in this life and in eternity.

Indeed, in the physical world we also see law and consequence. For example, if a person jumps out of an airplane without a parachute, they will inevitably die. Or in civil law: If someone breaks a particular article of the criminal code, they must be imprisoned for a set term, and sometimes even for life. In a similar way, spiritual laws operate. In the Book of Revelation is written: He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. This means that there is a spiritual law by which one who kills must himself be killed.

We see the fulfillment of this law in life. For instance, bandits and murderers rarely die a natural death; they almost always perish violently. Another example: After the 1917 revolution in Russia, rivers of blood were spilled. But the executioners and murderers who shed that blood were themselves executed in 1937–1938.

Here, in the words of Closer Than My Own Father: Elder Paisios and His Spiritual Children, Part 1The path to Athos is open to men only. But in Greece there is a women’s monastery where they live according to strict Athonite rules and serve without electricity, by candlelight. This monastery, in the village of Souroti, was founded by Elder Paisios the Athonite, whose books have been so popular in the past few years in America and Russia. A correspondent of “Neskuchnii Sad” headed to Souroti to meet with people who remember Elder Paisios.

“>Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, the spiritual law came into effect—that very same law mentioned not only in Revelation but throughout the Holy Scriptures: He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.

And these laws operate not only on earth. The deadly power of sin is directed primarily toward eternity. Its aim is to separate the human soul from God and strike it with eternal death. According to spiritual law, a person who has sinned falls under the power of the devil, and therefore must dwell where the devil is; that is, in hell.

It must be said that spiritual laws are inescapable; no one can cancel them—no one except the Lord God Himself. He alone has authority over them; as Scripture says, He holds the key that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth (Rev. 3:7); In what cases does the Lord override these spiritual laws? He does so when a person repents.

This is the very miracle of repentance—it is able to rescue even the most hardened sinner from the depths of hell and bring him into Paradise.

For example, a person may have committed many grievous sins and, by the standards of spiritual law, must be punished. But if he undertakes true repentance, these laws no longer apply to him. Not only does he receive forgiveness and deliverance from punishment, but God raises him from the sinful abyss into which he had fallen and restores him to the spiritual dignity he had before his sins.

This may seem like an impossible miracle, but if we remember that for Christians who pray “Our Father,” God is our Heavenly Father, then it all becomes clear. For if an earthly father can forgive a repentant son, how much more will our Heavenly Father forgive!

An excellent example of the overriding of spiritual laws can be found in the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son. Despite his grave sins, the father did not even mention them, but joyfully received his repentant son back into his home.

This is also seen in the lives of many saints who came to God from lives of great sin and were sanctified through repentance.

One of the clearest examples of this is the life of St. Mary of Egypt, whose memory we celebrate today.

Mary lived in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, at the end of the Fifth century. In her youth, she was a harlot, a woman of immoral living, completely immersed in sin, truly a daughter of hell and destruction. There seemed to be no hope for her salvation. By all spiritual laws, she deserved condemnation. But then repentance entered her soul—it was as if a veil fell from her eyes, and she saw the filth and horror of her sins. Repentance transformed her life beyond recognition—a true miracle occurred: from a great sinner she became a great ascetic, moreover one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.

Why, someone may ask, does repentance have such great power? Because within repentance lies the mystery of God’s infinite love for a fallen and sinful human being. Grave sins are like massive boulders or mountains, but the love of God is an ocean, in which that mountain is submerged. All we need to do is to cast it off, that is, to repent.

It should also be said that the life of St. Mary of Egypt is most directly relevant to most of us. There are both similarities and differences between her life and ours. The similarity is that many of us were called to the Church in adulthood, after already having committed many sins in our lives. The difference is that St. Mary became a great saint, while we have not—at least, not yet. Why is this so? Because St. Mary’s repentance was incomparably deeper and stronger than ours. She truly brought forth fruits worthy of repentance. Her repentance was fiery. She had an unshakable resolve to follow Christ even unto death. And the Holy Fathers teach that a fervent will, in just one hour, can bring more delight to God than many years of labor without such zeal. That is why St. Mary received from God the beautiful and unearthly gift of holiness.

We on the contrary lack that fervent will to follow Christ. So although we walk the same path, we do so at a very slow pace, often stopping—or even turning back. And so those who have repentance and a burning will easily catch up to us and pass us by.

Elder Paisios used to say that if people living in the world, with their unruly temperaments and passions, do not fall into despair but instead turn to repentance, placing their hope in the almighty power of God, and turn the wheel of their powerful vehicle upward, then very soon they will overtake the others who have been traveling the same road for years—but at a slow pace.

In the time of St. Mary’s youth in Alexandria, there were many Christians. Most likely, seeing her sinful and shameful life, they often judged her. Yet after her conversion and repentance, she surpassed them all, quickly overtaking those who judged her, those who had long been ahead of her—but moving slowly.

From the life of St. Mary of Egypt, dear brothers and sisters, let us take two important lessons: First, never judge anyone, even someone living in obvious and grievous sin. Many judged St. Mary, yet she became one of the greatest saints. Second, let us try to look at ourselves from the outside and ask, Are we moving forward on the Christian path? How fast are we going? Are we standing still? Are we crawling like a tortoise? Are we taking one step forward and two steps back? Once we honestly answer this, let us strive to increase our speed—the speed with which we follow Christ, the speed with which we walk the path of salvation. Amen.

From Priest Ioann Pavlov, In the Beginning Was the Word. 100 Select Homilies [Russian].