[Message from our Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler]
Dear friends,
Christ is Risen! On Easter Sunday, I write to tell you about St. Mary of Egypt, who is remembered by the Catholic Church on April 2 – Holy Thursday this year. She was born in Roman Egypt and ran away from home at age 12. She lived as a prostitute until age 29, when she repented and began to live in the desert. In the passage below, from the sixth- or seventh-century “Life of Mary,” Mary gives instructions to a Christian elder (and now saint) named Zosima:
Put some of the lifegiving Body and Blood of Christ into a holy vessel worthy to hold such Mysteries for me, and bring it. And wait for me on the banks of the Jordan adjoining the inhabited parts of the land, so that I can come and partake of the lifegiving Gifts… even to this day I have not approached the Holy Mysteries. And I thirst for them with irrepressible love and longing. Therefore I ask and implore you to grant me my wish, bring me the lifegiving Mysteries at the very hour when Our Lord made His disciples partake of His Divine Supper.
The passage calls attention to her profound love of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Mary describes the Body and Blood of Christ as “lifegiving” three times in this passage. She also calls them “Mysteries” three times. Finally, she shares that she has not received the blessed sacrament, and she implores Zosima to bring “the lifegiving Mysteries” to her. St. Mary of Egypt, pray for us, that on this day of Christ’s resurrection we also may adore Jesus as you did, “with irrepressible love and longing.”
If you would like to read the full story of St. Mary of Egypt, you can find it here. Happy Easter!
Yours in Christ,
Daniel Wasserman-Soler
Executive Director
Lumen Christi Institute