SAINT MARY OF EGYPT AND THE RECOVERY FROM TRAUMA

SAINT MARY OF EGYPT AND THE RECOVERY FROM TRAUMA

Fr Luke A Veronis

Some years ago I read an extremely difficult book to read, a NY Times bestseller entitled Spilled Milk which gives the reader a glimpse into the world of child and physical abuse. This must-read book offers an awareness of what happens to victims, as well as what happens to the entire family, the perpetrator and the larger community around such a traumatic experience. The protagonist of the book was sexually abused and raped from a very young age by her father, while her siblings were physically abused, and even though the protagonist thought she was protecting her siblings by not speaking up about her own abuse, she later learned that even her siblings endured sexual abuse as well. The mother was oblivious to the horrible ordeal her four children suffered as she focused only on her own world of pain med addiction. Even the outside world surrounding these suffering children - from school teachers and administrators, to the kids’ peers and their parents, and even relatives - all seemed blind or chose to remain unaware of the environment of suffering and distress afflicting these children.

Eventually the young girl found strength when she was 16 years old to reveal her harrowing reality, despite extreme feelings of shame and guilt, and despite feeling more like the perpetrator than the victim herself. After coming forward, she had to deal with our country’s dysfunctional legal system which prolonged the trial of her father for two years, forcing this young teen to repeatedly describe her harrowing experiences to complete strangers and law officials whom she feared, each time making her want to backtrack her revelation. After two years of the judicial system, the jury ends up exonerating her father, and only after an appeal and a second trial was he convicted. She finally felt safe.

I highly recommend this book, Spilled Milk, simply to make us all more aware of the suffering of people all around us! One of the many lessons I took away from this book was that despite all this young child endured, she was able to hide from many her disturbing reality by being an honor roll student, a cheerleader and someone who others thought had her life all together. She was the overachiever in her family and society couldn’t see her deep wounds. Thank God, she eventually found certain adults whom she deeply trusted and who gradually encouraged her to reveal her dark secrets. Through intense counseling, through continuous support and encouragement, and through unconditional love she found a path of healing that was slow, painful, difficult.

Her siblings and her mother, however, didn’t accept the arduous path of healing and chose instead, whether consciously or unconsciously, to continue in paths of self-destruction and self-hatred through their addictions, violent behavior, and dysfunctional relationships. So often, society then judges such people who are deeply wounded and hurting in traumatic ways, simply condemning their self-destructive behavior instead of trying to understand the roots of their brokenness and instead of offering paths of healing.

Reading this book and then reflecting on an enlightening article by Dr. Pia Sophia Chaudhari, I realized that talking about this book might be an appropriate way to reflect on the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, whom we remember on this 5^th Sunday of Great Lent. The typical way we hear the life of this 6^th century saint relates to how she, at the young age of only 12, entered a life of utter depravity with her sexual desires, not simply as a prostitute but more so as a sex addict who delighted in freely engaging in sexual exploits with any men whom she could ensnare in her immorality.

This life of utter decadence continued for 17 years until one day when she saw a crowd of people traveling from the city of Alexandria on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross. She paid passage to travel with the crowd by offering her body to whomever wanted it. When she finally arrived in the Holy Lands and tried to enter the church of the Holy Sepulcher, an invisible force keeps her out of the church. In despair, she sat outside the church deeply mourning her sinful life and calling on the Theotokos to allow her to see the precious Cross of Christ. She was pierced with sincere repentance and as she promised to change her life, she was able to enter the church and venerate the Holy Cross. This unusual experience led her to flee into the desert where she spent the next 47 years, tormented by “many desires and passions,” until she overcame her temptations and discovered peace with God. At the end of her life she providentially met Fr. Zozimos, with whom she shared her life story and who ended up burying her body, after which he told her story which has inspired generations of Christians.

Dr. Chadhari wrote a beautiful article entitled, “Depth Psychology and the Courage of St. Mary of Egypt” and noted “what is often lifted up in commentaries on this story… is the willing ‘wantonness’ of St Mary’s sin, the stunning and absolute nature of her repentance, and then her courageous ascetic struggle in the wilderness… But I also wonder,” she questions, “about what led her into her original state. What occurred in Mary’s childhood to bring her to a place of leaving home at age 12 to move to a big city by herself? Was she a social outcast? Was she abused? Did she have family? What sense of worth lived within her? What was she looking for in her promiscuous behavior? Was her physical desire knotted up in a distorted search for a love and intimacy she had never known?”

Instead of reading the life of Saint Mary in a simple manner, seeing her as a sinful woman who deeply repented, these questions challenge us to reflect in a deeper way into the life of this beloved saint and realize that she possibly came from a traumatic past. As we reflect on her excessive life of sin and her new life through repentance in Christ, we can also think about the lives of others we may know who have suffered from past trauma and take care not to simply reject these broken individuals as sinful and beyond hope.

When we see people in the midst of self-destructive behavior that both pulls down themselves and others, can we see beyond their outward sinfulness and focus not on their inner broken relationships, their insecurities, their shame and self-hatred, but instead on their God-given beauty hidden deep within their soul. Just as Mary of Egypt revealed a moment of grace when she wanted to encounter God, so too do these other individuals, no matter how prodigal and wicked their life may appear. Everyone can discover moments of grace where we want to encounter a God who offers hope and healing, where we discover a loving God who desires to offer new life.

We should look at Saint Mary’s story not as one where she went to Jerusalem and tried to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher simply by chance, but we should see that the Spirit of God was within her, despite all her years of sinfulness, calling her back to Him.

Dr. Chadhari goes on to explain, “If we emphasize only purity and impurity, we may miss the actual breath-taking beauty of what can and actually does happen when our own small realities encounter the greater Reality… Such an encounter with truth is the beginning of hope—not because a sinner can be saved in a moralistic trope, but because an inner space opens up in the person that can change their whole existence, their whole experience of the world. It is the beginning of freedom, inextricably bound up in the experience of love…

Once a different way has been glimpsed and even more, fully experienced, an all out revolution begins. [This] makes Saint Mary’s story all the more moving, not just as an icon of repentance in the way we often hear that word, but of love breaking through deeply patterned behavior [of trauma] and holding open the door to a different way, one Saint Mary would have to fight body and soul, tooth and nail, to hold on to. Her experiences of God must have been very, very strong to affect such a radical “metanoia” and then sustain her for the ensuing battle with all the demons and complexes which would still be there in her psyche.”

Saint Mary’s life presents such a relevant message for many people today. Yes, it teaches us about sin and redemption but much more it offers “a moving story, a miraculous story, an utterly harrowing story about deep healing of despair and isolation, an encounter with true love, and the lifelong struggle that such an initiatory encounter may set off in each of us as we strive to become who we were born to be—creatures of desire made for communion with God and with each other.”