St. Mary of Egypt was a terrible sinner who became an even greater penitent and saint.
In the 5th century in Palestine, there was a very holy priest monk named Zosimus. He had served God since his youth with great fervor for more than 53 years and many souls came to him for spiritual direction. His reputation for holiness grew far and wide. So much so, that the devil was able to tempt him into pridefully thinking he had reached perfection. To prevent him from harboring a proud spirit, God prompted Zosimus to journey to a monastery near the Jordan. Being admitted amongst these holy monks, who lived intensely penitential lives, he quickly realized his own error and began to learn much from their ascetic practices. On the First Sunday of Lent, following Holy Mass, every member of this community crossed the river and dispersed themselves into the desert wilderness that lies towards Arabia. They passed Lent in perfect solitude. Some took a few provisions with them, others lived off whatever they could forage in the desert. They would return on Palm Sunday. It was Lent in the year 430 AD and Zosimus followed their practice, passing over the Jordan and wandering, all alone, into the desert. Prompted by the Holy Ghost, or his Guardian Angel, he wished to travel as deep as he could into the wilderness in the hopes of meeting some hermit of still greater perfection.
After twenty days, when he had stopped at mid-day to pray the psalms he saw a human figure. At first he was frightened, thinking it might be an illusion or an attack of the Devil. Arming himself with the Sign of the Cross he concluded his prayers and then gazed after the figure: the person was small, extremely sunburnt, had white short hair, appeared naked, and moved very quickly. Zosimus assumed it was the holy hermit he was seeking and so ran after him with all speed. But the person bade him stop with these words: "Abbot Zosimus, I am a woman; throw me your mantle to cover me that you may come near me." He was astonished to hear a woman's voice and even more surprised that she knew his name. Once covered, she approached him and agreed that for the glory of God she would share her story with him, in the hope that on the day of the terrible judgment, God might show her mercy.
Mary was born in Egypt. When she was twelve she ran away from home and went to live in the great cosmopolitan metropolis of Alexandria (second only to Rome). She took to a life of the streets, fell into sin and lived the life of a public prostitute for seventeen years. Worse, she confessed, she did not adopt such a lifestyle to survive but to satisfy her unbridled lust. She was so wicked that she even took delight in seducing pious souls.
At age 29 she heard of a boat of pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land to celebrate at Jerusalem the feast of The Exaltation of the Holy Cross of our Savior. Seeing this as a new challenge she booked passage on the boat (not paying with money) and gave herself the personal goal of leading into sin as many of these devout pilgrims as she possibly could. She continued these debaucheries the entire voyage and also upon arriving in Jerusalem.
The day of the feast, the multitudes of pilgrims entered the Church to venerate the exposed Holy Cross. Mary was in their midst, but found some invisible force prevented her from crossing the threshold of the Church. This happened to her four times. She retired to a small corner in the courtyard surrounding the Church and began to seriously reflect upon why this was happening to her. She realized her life of horrible sin was the cause and melted into tears, beating her breast, sighing and groaning. Before her, she then first noticed an image of the Blessed Mother of God. Fixing her eyes upon Our Lady, Mary of Egypt begged her by her incomparable purity to come to her aid and promised that she would offer whatever repentance God deemed acceptable. She begged the Holy Virgin to allow her to enter the Church and promised she would consecrate herself over to a life of penance with even greater zeal and fervor than she had devoted to a life of sin. After this prayer, she experienced an interior consolation. She attempted to enter the Church, and went in with complete ease. She venerated the Holy Cross of Christ and confessed her sins to a priest. She then returned to the image of our Lady, and shed copious tears, kissing the very pavement before the image, and begging Our Lady to guide her. She then heard a voice tell her: "If thou goest beyond the Jordan, thou shalt find rest and comfort." She begged our Lady to never abandon her and set off on her journey with naught but three loaves of bread.
She walked all day and by nightfall reached the Church of John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River. She prayed to Mary there, received the Holy Eucharist, and made another confession. She ate half a loaf and slept on the ground. The following morning she entrusted herself to the Blessed Mother, crossed the Jordan, and entered the wilderness. From then on, she was never heard from or seen from again. She did not speak to a living soul and survived in the desert in complete isolation. She lived a life of complete penance and mortification. Her clothes wore out and she had nothing more. Her bread lasted a few days and then she had to forage and often went without food. The sun, the wind, and the cold battered and bruised her body. Often, she had such little strength, she could not even stand. She suffered terrible temptations, recalling the carnal delights she experienced in Egypt, including simply the fish she ate and the wine she drank; for here she often found not a drop of water. Frequently the devil would coax her towards abandoning this life but she would always recall the vows she made to the Blessed Mother and persevered, begging Our Lady's holy protection.
Zosimus asked her, ‘How long have you been in the desert?’ Mary answered that she was not certain, but as best as she could determine it had been 47 years and she was now 76 years old. Zosimus also noted that in their conversation she often cited Scriptural passages. He asked her to show him her copy of the Scriptures, but she replied that she had no books and had never learned to read. "It is God that teacheth man knowledge" she concluded. She then prophesied that the following year, he would not cross the river on the 1st Sunday, but that she would do so on Holy Thursday. Since she had shared her story with him and had broken a 47 year long silence for his benefit, she in turn asked that on that day he would please bring her Holy Communion.
Indeed the next year, he was gravely ill when Lent arrived and could not leave his cell. On Holy Thursday he went to the banks of the River with the precious Body and Blood of our Lord (as well as a basket of figs, dates and lentils). At dusk, Mary of Egypt appeared. She made the Sign of the Cross over the Jordan and then walked across the surface of the water. She received the Holy Sacrament from his hands. Then lifting her hands to heaven she prayed: "Now thou doth dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace; because my eyes have seen my Savior." She begged Zosimus to pardon the trouble she had caused him and asked him to return, the next Lent, to the spot where he had first seen her.
The next Lent, Zosimus eagerly set out, wishing to learn more of the spiritual life of this great saint. Yet when he reached the spot where he had seen her, he found her dead. Indeed he had never even learned her name. But there next to her still preserved body was scratched out her name "Mary of Egypt" and the date of her death. She had died the Good Friday after having received Holy Communion from his hands. Zosimus was utterly amazed that in the harsh wilderness of the desert, lying out in the open, neither weather, nor beast, nor natural corruption had harmed her body. With the miraculous aid of a lion he dug a grave and buried her with all the proper Christian ceremonies. Zosimus returned to his monastery where he lived to be 100 years old. It was through him and the monastery that the rest of the Christian world came to know of the heroic witness, intense asceticism, and holy perfection of Saint Mary of Egypt, the Penitent.