Becoming a Saint in Social Isolation

Deacon David Previtali · Becoming a Saint in Social 
Catholic Liturgy for the 4th Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2020. Readings: Acts 2:14, 36-41. Theme: Becoming a Saint in Social Isolation

  

There once lived in Egypt a beautiful young Catholic girl named Mary. Sadly, she came from a very troubled home and when she was 12 years old she ran away from home and became a street kid. By the time she entered her teenage years she had become a prostitute because she thirsted and yearned for love and security, no matter how it might be gotten.

Mary did extremely well in the world’s oldest profession. But as so often happens with addiction and sin, she began to seek new “highs” to try and satisfy the deep void in her heart. This brought her to a most despicable idea: she would to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, not out of any religious devotion whatsoever, but for the thrill of seducing hard-to-get men. And stories tell us that she was quite successful aboard that ship. But then God, in His fatherly mercy, did something absolutely amazing.

One day when all the pilgrims were going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to venerate the tomb of Jesus, Mary joined them solely out of curiosity. Everyone passed through the church doors…except for Mary. Oh, not that she didn’t try…but every time she DID try an invisible force prevented her from being able to walk through the threshold. In her confusion, she looked up above the doorway and her eyes fell upon a picture of the Blessed Mother. At that same moment, she distinctly heard a woman’s voice inside her say, “Repent of your sins. Ask forgiveness. Change your ways. Then you shall enter.”

Mary was overcome with sorrow and resolved right then and there in that doorway to repent, to change.  A priest happened to be walking by so she begged him to hear her confession.  Going back to the entrance of the shrine, she walked right through the doors without a problem as the Blessed Mother’s voice has assured her, and spent the entire day there in prayer and meditation.  Mary went on to live a very dedicated Christian life of prayer and penance as a hermit in the wilderness by the Jordan River.

Over the years, she became known to a monastery of monks in the area. One of them we sent out to her every Easter to hear her confession and give her Holy Communion. Other than that annual contact, she lived in total isolation from society. Unable to participate in the sacramental life and charitable works of the local Christian community, she nonetheless continued growing in her relationship with Christ, in her commitment to repentance and conversion.   She was able to do this by the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling within her, leading her to daily prayer from the heart and to encountering the presence of Jesus in the Gospels.  Mary died when she was 77 years old, having lived about 40 years in social isolation as a hermit.

St. Peter’s words in today’s first reading remind me of this story of St. Mary of Egypt. He is proclaiming the very same message that touched and transformed her heart and life.  He said to the crowd in Jerusalem: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Through the mystical power of the Scriptures, which are the living Word of God, he is now saying that very same thing to each one of us,  to you and me.

We can truly live this message right here and now, today, even in the midst of our own social isolation. Even though like St. Mary, we cannot now participate as we wish in the sacramental life and charitable works of our parish, we can nevertheless grow in the grace of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us as he did in her.  This presence and power of the Spirit enables us to repent of our sins daily; to go directly to God for forgiveness of our sins since we cannot confess; and to personally encounter the presence of Christ in the Gospels. God is so much greater than any social isolation or lock-down of religious services! Nothing whatsoever can stop the spiritual process he wishes to continue in us of being transformed more and more into the image of Jesus, his Beloved Son.

Social isolation and sheltering-in do not take any of this opportunity away from us!  As a matter of fact, they can actually become a positive experience by teaching us to be more personally present to God in our prayer-times.  Maybe our inability to encounter Christ present in the Eucharist will move us to become more aware of the truth that he is also present in the Living Word of the Scriptures which are also our spiritual food and which we can be reading at home. And perhaps now that we cannot see him hidden under the appearance of the consecrated host at the altar, we can be more sensitive to the fact that he also comes to us, as Mother St. Teresa of Calcutta used to say, hidden under the appearances of flesh and bone, that is, of the people in our lives, especially those in need.

You know, I think it makes total sense that St. Peter’s message of repentance, forgiveness and conversion in the Holy Spirit is possible for us no matter in what kind of conditions we find ourselves.  Because it deals with the most important task we have in this life on planet Earth: the very salvation of our immortal soul.  Being forgiven of one’s sins and living for God in Christ is so vital that it has to be possible for anyone, anywhere, anytime. And repentance, forgiveness, and conversion are the first steps that lead to this spiritual renewal and transformation.

St. Mary shows us the way.  It begins with an experience of God's love. This love of God changes me. The realization that He is passionately in love with me changes me. And this leads me to ask forgiveness from God and to mean it from the heart.  When we come before the Lord with this attitude, his forgiveness obliterates our sins. We literally leave our past behind, as far as God is concerned.  It no longer exists! The history of our lives is wiped clean! It is as if we had never committed those sins in the first place!

And then once we have encountered the passionate love of God and have been deeply touched by His forgiving mercy, we are changed from the inside out, like St. Mary of Egypt. We come to see a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at life and others, a new way of living.  This is called on-going daily conversion and it means that we find ourselves, by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, daily becoming more and more like Jesus.

So, we see in our Scriptures today and in St. Mary of Egypt, that no matter what obstacles may pop up in our lives, a life-changing relationship with Jesus is possible because he is truly risen.  And just as he is no longer limited to a particular time in history or place on earth, so neither is he limited by our rules of social isolation. He can and will reach out his hand to accompany us on this journey of conversion that is planted in us by repentance, grows within us through forgiveness, and blossoms in our lives to transform us into something beautiful for God and for the world.