“The Feat of Repentance” #
I.I. Alekseev
Thousands of great and radiant lights burn before us, illuminating and warming with the rays of their gracious light the souls opened to them. Our earthly life, as one venerable father says, is a race toward heaven, an ascent up the great mountain of virtue. It is up to us to make this path toward the heights of holiness and blessedness light and sweet. Millions of righteous souls have trodden this path. Their feats elevate our souls. They left us noble examples of a holy life and, like the sun, they illuminate our way to Christ.
The great and glorious feat of repentance was woven for us Christians by Mary of Egypt through her life. “I am from Egypt,” she recounts about herself, “I was no more than twelve years old when I left for Alexandria. Without horror I cannot recall the life I led there for nearly seventeen years. When I was twenty-nine, on a summer day I saw a multitude of people from Egypt and Libya heading in crowds toward the sea. I asked someone what this meant. I was told they were sailing to Palestine for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. I decided to go with them. Along the way, I drowned in filth and did the same in Jerusalem. When the feast arrived, I went to the church with the others. But when I reached the doors, an invisible hand forcefully thrust me back. Three or four times I tried to enter the temple, and each time the invisible hand cast me out into the square. Full of confusion and shame, I stood in a corner of the porch and pondered the reason for this extraordinary occurrence. Grace entered my heart and I was flooded with hot tears. I beat my breast in silence and was tormented. Weeping and groaning, I lifted my eyes and saw that I was standing before an icon of the Mother of God. I turned to her in supplication to let me enter the holy temple. I prayed for a long time, and with some hope I approached the church doors. A trembling seized me at the entrance, but I entered the church and, with the others, bowed before the Life-Giving Cross. Returning to the icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, I poured out my thanks for her mercy and, with fervent tears, begged her to show me the path of repentance. Then a voice reached me from afar: ‘Cross the Jordan, and there you will find peace.’ And since then, for forty-seven years I have lived alone, separated from people, awaiting the mercy of God.”
How instructive is the life of this holy ascetic. For nearly seventeen years she led an impure life in a depraved city. She wallowed in every abomination both in body and soul. “What tongue can tell, what ear can bear the evil deeds I committed,” she told Venerable Zosima in the desert, “how did the earth not open its mouth to swallow me alive into hell?” What effort it took, after such prolonged and terrible corruption of the soul, to make it lofty and pure like a diamond. She attained such perfection and holiness that she received from God the gift of foresight and stood in the air. In the desert, she battled her mad thoughts and passions through fasting and prayer, and she overcame them. From Mary’s example, we are convinced that even the greatest sins we commit can be overcome and blotted out by our efforts. From impure and vile, we can become righteous and holy. But for this, our entire life must be a feat, a striving for self-perfection.
We see from the life of Venerable Mary what saving influence was wrought upon her by the holy temple, the Life-Giving Cross, the icon of the Mother of God, and prayer before her. If only we more often turned to these means of salvation, we would not be surrounded by the horror of debauchery that now saturates both our personal and contemporary life. Today, the lives of the saints are forgotten. The holy labors of the righteous of the Church are erased from memory. In their place, there has appeared a literature that corrupts both soul and conscience, that glorifies a vulgar life. Instead of remembering the great deeds of the righteous, we daily absorb the vulgarity and rot of modern life from every corner of the world. Crime and sin, like an epidemic, spread swiftly and unstoppably if we do not wage war against them. Growing accustomed to them, we make them the laws of our life. And in these conditions, the struggle against them is difficult — it requires that great feat to which Venerable Mary of Egypt committed herself.
In olden times, people lived not by the “malice of the day,” but by thoughts of great ascetics and glorious hermits. Their examples, their pious deeds were the framework of life. In those days, church services left an impression of seriousness upon the whole day. One returned home with not only the delight of hymnody and solemn ritual, but also with an inner event in one’s soul. There would be no wondrous ancient piety had it not been for the preaching and quiet labors of the good and pious elders — the fathers. They preached the Gospel simply, as Christ did. The clergy knew how to speak with the people in a plain and powerful tongue.
In those days there was neither the appalling depravity that fills our present world, nor the insane despair and epidemic suicides that grip life today.
All our hope for salvation lies within ourselves. “Let us,” our holy guides call out to us, “strive with tireless labors and diligence, in goodly competition and mutual rivalry in spiritual and bodily progress. If we see someone displaying virtue, humility, and other praiseworthy deeds, let us encourage ourselves with a noble impulse to walk alongside such a person. For along such a path is born the union of peace and loving disposition toward one another. Let us in no way imitate contrary examples. But as wise and God-taught men, let us cleave to what is good in all temptations (cf. 1 Thess. 5:21). Let us raise the anchor of our faith, unfurl the sails of hope, and with all our strength cross the great sea of this fleeting life, making our way to the distant haven.”
Instructor of the Holy Protection Church of Vilna, I. I. Alekseev
Journal Rodnaya Starina No. 3, 1928