{"id":12133,"date":"2019-02-15T22:51:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T02:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=12133"},"modified":"2019-02-15T23:41:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T03:41:45","slug":"knockin-on-heavens-door-some-notes-on-mary-of-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2019\/02\/knockin-on-heavens-door-some-notes-on-mary-of-egypt.html","title":{"rendered":"Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: Some notes on Mary of Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you are up-front about your experience of either addiction, or let\u2019s say marginalized sexuality, and you spend a lot of time with Christians from Orthodox or Eastern Catholic churches, eventually somebody will tell you to pray to Mary of Egypt. This is probably a good idea (look at this lady<\/a>! Do you want to get in her way? Neither does sin<\/em>) and I do it every night; and yet I am pretty ambivalent about her story, and want to suggest a couple cautionary notes about its contemporary deployment.<\/p>\n

# A of all, what was Mary\u2019s deal? This page<\/a> gives the story as I hear it most often:<\/p>\n

She began her life as a young woman who followed the passions of the body, running away from her parents at age twelve for Alexandria. There she lived as a harlot for seventeen years, refusing money from the men that she copulated with, instead living by begging and spinning flax.<\/p>\n

One day, however, she met a group of young men heading toward the sea to sail to Jerusalem for the veneration<\/a> of the Holy Cross<\/a>. Mary went along for the ride, seducing the men as they traveled for the fun of it. But when the group reached Jerusalem and actually went towards the church, Mary was prohibited from entering by an unseen force. After three such attempts, she remained outside on the church patio, where she looked up and saw an icon<\/a> of the Theotokos<\/a>. She began to weep and prayed with all her might that the Theotokos might allow her to see the True Cross; afterwards, she promised, she would renounce her worldly desires and go wherever the Theotokos may lead her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So first of all I will make the extremely obvious point that if you tell gay people we should have some special connection to Mary of Egypt it sounds like you\u2019re saying being gay is inherently a condition of excessive sexuality<\/a>. This is a traditional position in the Church and it fosters, in my opinion, the characteristic Christian mistake of \u201creading\u201d homosexuality as a problem in the sex drive, where the remedy is heterosexuality, instead of a problem in one\u2019s same-sex longings and desires, where the remedy is living one\u2019s same-sex loves chastely. But beyond any theological problems, I am not convinced that a gay woman who has had (for example) two sexual partners in her life, both of which were within long-term relationships, is really gonna relate all that well to Mary of Egypt simply because she\u2019s gay.<\/p>\n

Sarah at A Queer Calling put this whole situation so sharply in her lovely post about choosing St. Photini as her patroness:<\/p>\n

After hearing the names of these two saints repeated one after the other for weeks, I finally asked someone, \u201cWhy do you think so many people are advising that I take either St. Mary of Egypt or St. Mary Magdalene as my patroness?\u201d<\/p>\n

Seemingly puzzled by my lack of insight, he replied, \u201cBecause they\u2019re both women who repented of serious sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having spent years reading and learning about the lives of the saints, I pressed further, \u201cThat\u2019s true for many holy men and women the Church recognizes. What\u2019s so special about St. Mary of Egypt and St. Mary Magdalene in that regard?\u201d<\/p>\n

He took a moment to stare at his shoes. Then, in a muted tone he spoke, \u201cThey repented and overcame their passions. They asked God to rid them of lustful desires\u2026something like what you\u2019re doing with celibacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I walked away from this interaction without saying much more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n

# Since Mary didn\u2019t get that money, she was not a sex worker. Was she a sex addict<\/a>?<\/p>\n

One of the definitions of addiction which I\u2019ve found most illuminating in my own recovery is, persistence in a compulsive behavior in spite of negative consequences. Addiction is that feeling of being desperate not to drink, as you walk the familiar route to the liquor store. Addiction is drinking even when it isn\u2019t fun anymore\u2013when the liquor which used to make you more social now keeps you isolated, when what used to make you overcome your fears now keeps you trapped and terrified, and you go back to it anyway, getting no reward, hoping this time will be different, this time it will work again, and it keeps not working.<\/p>\n

As far as the hagiographers are concerned, Mary suffered no negative consequences from her sexual appetites right up until that day she tried to venerate the Cross. Her hagiography may be punctuated with troubling silences (why do<\/em> girls run away at age 12?) but at least from the legend that has been handed on, she enjoyed the Hell out of her sins. And practically the instant sin kept her from something she wanted, she stopped!<\/p>\n

The characteristic experience of addiction, the source of all its demoralization and despair, doesn\u2019t seem to be an experience Mary had.<\/p>\n

# Which brings us to that moment when an \u201cunseen force\u201d keeps her from entering the church. You know what unseen force usually keeps sinful people from coming into church? The Devil.<\/p>\n

Probably the worst period of my alcoholism was when I stopped going to Confession. Shame and hopelessness almost kept me from church entirely. What kept me going was a combination of numb habit and the knowledge that missing Sunday Mass, at least, was a mortal sin. (You\u2019ve gotta love Catholics\u2013swilling a handle of bottom-shelf bourbon, frantically Googling \u201cis epiphany a holy day of obligation\u201d\u2026.) And I can\u2019t tell you how grateful I am that God got me over that threshold, awful hungover evening after evening.<\/p>\n

I love the 12 Steps, you guys know this about me, but all my memories of meetings are about sitting in a room while people tell their stories, thinking, All these people are better than me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too easy to tell Mary\u2019s story in a way that suggests we are right when we think we\u2019re too soiled and selfish, too damaged and disgusting to come to Christ.<\/p>\n

# And yet I do pray to her all the time; I love her. You guys know that I\u2019m reticent on the subject of my own *~*struggles with chastity*~* and boy howdy, I\u2019m not planning to change that, but I do in fact need and resort to the patroness of the sexually-chaotic. She\u2019s the patroness of sleazoids; and so talking about how much you love her offers a salutary humiliation. I like that we have a saint where all you have to do is say that you have a special devotion to her and people are all like, \u201c\u2026Ohhhhhh.\u201d<\/p>\n

# There are deeper readings of her story, in which it\u2019s a story about hunger. That insatiable hunger for sex or for men isn\u2019t the opposite of her life abandoned to God in the desert. It\u2019s the foreshadowing of her desert life. Only God could meet that giant hunger. Her capacity for sin was<\/em> her capacity for love\u2013a desire so strong that once it found its proper object, it could only become spectacular holiness.<\/p>\n

Or maybe her hunger was always a fear that she could not be okay on her own. In the desert God tells her, You have all you need.<\/em> This fear of being without the shelter of others\u2013without their approval, without their physical presence, (frankly) without their health insurance\u2013is something I think a lot of people nowadays can relate to. In the desert God tells Mary, You\u2019ll never spend another night without a Lover<\/em>.<\/p>\n

# The troparion honoring Mary in the Orthodox Church begins with a line which can act as antidote, I hope, to any readings of Mary\u2019s story which would turn hagiography into self-harm: \u201cThe image of God was truly preserved in you, O mother,\/For you took up the Cross and followed Christ.\u201d But of course she bore the image of God even before she took up her cross; and here we find our hope.<\/p>\n

The image of God is preserved in you. God has prepared salvation for you, even when you turn away from it because you don\u2019t deserve it or can\u2019t imagine it. Even now, the image of God is preserved in you.<\/p>\n

Picture of an icon of Mary of Egypt via Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are up-front about your experience of either addiction, or let\u2019s say marginalized sexuality, and you spend a lot of time with Christians from Orthodox or Eastern Catholic churches, eventually somebody will tell you to pray to Mary of Egypt. This is probably a good idea (look at this lady! Do you want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":12139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,177],"tags":[52,76,1265,271,69],"class_list":["post-12133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","category-too-much-is-never-enough","tag-if-whiskey-were-a-woman-id-be-married-for-sure","tag-prayers-to-st-mary-of-egypt","tag-self-obsessed","tag-sun-sex-sin-death-and-destruction","tag-weird-saints"],"yoast_head":"\nKnockin' on Heaven's Door: Some notes on Mary of Egypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you are up-front about your experience of either addiction, or let's say marginalized sexuality, and you spend a lot of time with Christians from\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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