Given by His Grace, Bp Gerasim of Fort Worth
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Last Sunday we commemorated St. John of the Ladder, the Abbot of Mt Sinai.
He sets forth in his book, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, the most detailed and precise teaching concerning the Orthodox spiritual life.
Using the image of a ladder, he instructs the Christian how to advance in the spiritual life, as if climbing a ladder one rung at a time.
This book enjoys such renown that it is appointed to be read at the Hours during the Great Fast as the most soul-profiting handbook on the spiritual life.
By assigning the commemoration of St John of the Ladder to the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent, the Church esteems the teaching of St. John to be the clearest, most precise exposition of how to live the spiritual life.
Furthermore, this implies that those being guided by the teaching of St John of the Ladder will grow in stature and vanquish those spirits “by prayer and fasting,” according to the words of Jesus that we heard in the Gospel last Sunday.
During this last week we heard two classics of Christian hymnography: The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete and the Akathist Hymn to the Most holy Theotokos.
The Church rightly considers these two works among the summit of ecclesiastical poetry and hymnography.
The Great Canon of St Andrew is the finest poetic exposition of Sacred Scripture that sets forth for Orthodox Christians a systematic teaching on repentance.
It is quite fitting not only that we chant this Canon during the Great Fast, but that we do so during the week following the commemoration of St John of the Ladder as if it were an application of his teaching.
If The Ladder of Divine Ascent sets forth a lofty teaching on the spiritual life in carefully crafted prose, then the Great Canon expounds what is repentance according to the Scriptures in structured liturgical poetry.
Then on the Matins of Saturday, we chant the Akathist Hymn, a superb composition of Byzantine hymnography praising the Virgin Theotokos in a series of 24 stanzas, one for each letter of the Greek alphabet.
These stanzas utilize an antinomic structure of contrasting couplets, starting with the paradox of the Annunciation.
The Akathist Hymn, in turn, gives way to our present commemoration on which we honor St Mary of Egypt today.
As Father Alexander eloquently related on Friday evening, as we carefully consider the life of St Mary of Egypt, her entrance into the Holy Sepulcher is only possible by means of her humble plea before the icon of the Theotokos.
She then freely enters to venerate the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Her life of repentance ensues, and the Lord indicates to her the transformative path she is to follow.
Just as there is no more beautiful exposition of the spiritual life than the Ladder of Divine Ascent and few hymns to rival the Great Canon or the Akathist, so, too, the life of Mary of Egypt is reckoned to be the greatest classic of Christian hagiography.
In fact, it is the only life of a saint appointed to be read so prominently within the context of the Divine Services.
We customarily read her life once a year on the Thursday of the Great Canon, traditionally celebrated at Matins on Wednesday evening.
I now will highlight a link between the commemoration of St. John of the Ladder and his teaching on the Christian spiritual life and our celebration of St Mary of Egypt.
As we read or hear the life of St Mary, we glimpse how an entire monastic community lived and functioned, as if following the very teaching set forth by St. John of the Ladder.
The author, St Sophronius, describes a well-ordered Christian monastery, systematically following an ascetic rule.
Historically, this monastery happens to be the monastery of Saint Gerasimus of the Jordan, but a monastery not otherwise referred to by name in the life of Saint Mary of Egypt.
St Zosimas faithfully follows the way of life instituted by the monks, with special emphasis on their peculiar custom of leaving the monastery following the rite of Forgiveness and spending the ensuing forty days in the wilderness in prayer and fasting.
This, of course, brings to mind those words of the Gospel reading from last Sunday, in which our Lord responds to his disciples, that such a spirit comes not out but by prayer and fasting.
Examining the life of St Mary of Egypt in exact detail, we learn that, even before entering the monastery, Zosimas ponders “in his heart the cherished desire to find a monk that might teach him the path of the Christian life.”
He considers whether there is “a monk on earth who can teach him anything new, or who has the power to help him in any form of ascetic discipline that he does not know or has never practiced.”
He asks: “Is there any man among those leading a contemplative life in the desert who surpasses me in ascetic practice or spiritual contemplation?”
The precise wording of the life states that Zosimas: “sets out into the wilderness” … “hoping to find a holy father dwelling there, who could help him to find what he longs for.”
He follows a rapid pace as if “hastening to reach some renowned and famous monastic abode.”
Having journeyed for twenty days [significantly one half of the allotted fast], at the sixth hour he stops walking for a short while and, turning toward the east, offers his usual prayers.
St Sophronius tells us: “While chanting psalms and looking up to heaven with an alert eye, he sees the shadowy illusion of a human body appear to the right of where he was standing and performing the prayers of the sixth hour.”
Zosimas is alarmed, suspecting that he is seeing a demonic phantom, and shivering with fear, makes the sign of the Cross.
He looks again and sees that, in fact, someone is walking.
He espies a naked figure whose body is black, as if tanned by the scorching of the sun.
It has “on its head hair white as wool, and even this is sparse as it does not reach below the neck of its body.”
Zosimas continues to pursue this figure.
He has been seeking some man of God to be his teacher.
But now powerful irony transforms the narrative.
Zosimas in some fashion has high regard for his own spiritual labors.
As the Lord arranges all things for our salvation, He sends as teacher not an elder or a man, but a woman.
A naked woman at that!
We behold this monastic who carefully has been following what is analogous to the teaching of St John of the Ladder.
But now, the careful observance of this teaching is turned on its head.
In a contrast very much like that between the Publican and the Pharisee, the instruction of Zosimas necessitates an encounter with the most outrageous sinner, but now totally transformed.
The Lord God who chooses the persecutor Saul to become the Apostle to the Gentiles, allows Zosimas to pursue and encounter St Mary of Egypt as the sublime image of ascetic life and repentance.
The Lord humbles the mind of Zosimas, as if saying to him: “If you wish to be perfect, go and become like this harlot.”
St Mary, on her part, flees every encounter with human beings.
She thoroughly has divested herself of every vestige of sin, including the very clothes she wore into the desert.
The Lord does not give Zosimas the teacher that this priestmonk wants, but He gives the instructor that will humble his thoughts and bring healing through him to an entire community.
The last thing that Zosimas ever wishes to encounter is a naked woman, but she is chosen to serve as the true canon of virtue and the proper demonstration of every teaching on the spiritual life.
Zosimas does not get to choose the medicine that is best for him.
Neither does not get to choose his instructor.
He doesn’t get spirituality on his own terms.
The encounter with St Mary of Egypt turns everything concerning the spiritual life of Zosimas upside down.
He returns to the monastery filled with awe and ponders this encounter in silence the entire year.
In the words of the Holy Gospel that we have read today James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approach Jesus and ask Him: “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”
Their request is not so different from Zosimas’ desire for a holy elder.
They ask Jesus, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory” (Mk 10.37).
But Jesus says to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mk 10.38).
Jesus concludes His discourse with these words: “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.
And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mk 10.43-45).
From the life of St Mary of Egypt, Zosimas enters the desert with some certain presumption about his own spiritual stature.
But his encounter with Mary transforms him into her servant or minister.
He seeks her blessing, he asks her prayers, he stands in awe before her.
He obeys her instructions.
He brings her the Holy Mysteries.
He sees to her burial.
He conveys her instructions to the brethren.
He tells her story.
Zosimas doesn’t get the teacher that he envisions.
He gets the teacher whom the Lord sends.
Through Zosimas we learn that the heights to which the repentant Publican reaches far surpass the righteousness of the Pharisee.
We learn that the Prodigal Son is restored to sonship through the transformation of his heart, descending into the uttermost depths of despair, he acknowledges that he has reaped the fruits of his own devices, both by his corrupt will and his utter ingratitude.
We, like Zosimas, now understand so clearly that publicans and harlots will enter the kingdom of heaven before us.
Like Zosimas we are to acquire a new understanding, a wisdom acquired through humility, a righteousness transcending far beyond the limits of our own ascesis.
Let us now revisit his quest: “Is there any man among those leading a contemplative life in the desert who surpasses me in ascetic practice or spiritual contemplation?”
The answer is no: there is no man, but there is a woman that does!
A woman to demonstrate both to Zosimas and to ourselves that our own righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord.
Only now do we begin to glimpse the path of faith and freedom.
This path of faith and freedom leads us to a radical repentance or to divest ourselves of crippling presumption and self-opinion.
It teaches us not to be served but rather to serve.
It tells us how and why the Lord comes to Jerusalem, to His own city, “as High Priest of the good things to come,” to give Himself as a ransom for many, to obtain for us eternal redemption.
To our Lord the High Priest of good things to come, to Him be all glory, honor and worship with the Un-originate Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages.