Chapter XXIX: Example of St. Mary of Egypt

FOR the consolation of all who may be troubled with such fears, and to confirm what I have said, let me give you the example of St. Mary of Egypt. This great saint, who attained to such a wonderful purity of heart and astonishing sanctity in her old age, was in her youth quite as remarkable for the wickedness and vileness of her life. From the age of twelve, for sixteen years, she was a scandal and offence to the Christian name by her abominable life. In the midst of her career of wickedness she saw one day a number of pilgrims taking ship for Jerusalem, to visit the holy places which our Lord had sanctified by His life and precious death.

She determined to join herself to the company, not from any pious motive but in order to carry on her wickedness with more facility. When the ship arrived, the pilgrims went up to the church to venerate the Holy Cross on which the Saviour died, and Mary, all hardened and wicked as she was, went up with the rest.

With bold face she was pushing in at the door, but an invisible power stopped her short at the threshold. Do what she could, she could not enter. She went away and came back to try again, but it was of no use. She was filled with fear, and the grace of God entered her heart. She recognized her own vileness and sinfulness, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

She turned to the Blessed Virgin, whose statue was placed at the entrance of the church, and said: “O Holy Virgin, mother of the Word made flesh, so pure and humble and chaste, intercede for me. Procure for me, a vile creature, the grace to go in and venerate the Holy Cross on which thy Son shed His blood, and I promise no more to return to my bad life, but to do penance in any way that may be most pleasing to God.”

Her prayer was heard, and she found afterwards no difficulty in entering and venerating the Holy Cross. Then, her heart filled with contrition, she commenced the penance which God the Holy Ghost inspired her to do, in order to make amends for her sins and establish herself in His fear and love.

That very day she started for the desert country beyond the river Jordan. She arrived at nightfall at the bank of the river, where there was a church of St. John the Baptist. Now notice what follows: she received Holy Communion that day. Her sighs and tears and prayers, as she travelled along the road, had prepared her. The enormity of her life was before her in all its dark colors. With simplicity of heart, and the single thought of declaring her sin the best she could, so as to forsake it forever, she made her confession.

It was enough: she told her sins as well as she could; she answered her confessor with simplicity, and her confession was finished. There was no need to tell her to come again. It was made just as well that once as if she had come back twenty times, and better.

“But maybe she was a very learned woman, who had been so well instructed that she knew how to make her confession perfectly.” Such was not the case. It was quite the contrary. She could not read a word, and seems to have been a very ignorant person, as we may well suppose her to have been, considering how careless and sinful she had been from a small girl up to the time of her conversion.

No: her example shows how ready God is to give sinners abundant grace to make a good confession, and to remove every difficulty when He sees a good will. “But did not St. Mary get so scrupulous that she had to repeat over her confession afterwards a number of times?” Not at all. She lived in the desert fifty-seven years in penance and prayer. Her confidence in God’s goodness and mercy, and her conscious ness of her own sincerity, were sufficient to put away all vain and silly scruples, so that her peace and tranquillity of soul became almost angelic.

Any girl who comes to confession with simplicity and earnestness as St. Mary did, no matter how much she may have sinned, will find it easy, as Mary did, and will receive from God graces similar to those that Mary received.

Let us thank God for this consoling Sacrament of Penance, and, when we return from it cleansed and strengthened, say, with the Blessed Virgin: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit exult in God my Saviour, who hath had regard to the humility of His handmaid. For He who is powerful hath done great things for me: blessed be His holy name” (St. Luke i. 46).