“Having been a sinful woman you became a Bride of Christ O most glorious Mary, you are a Bride of the Kingdom” (From Kondakion of Mary of Egypt Feast)
Three women, the first separated by centuries from the other two, the latter two a generation apart. They share promiscuity, the primeval manner of selling their bodies to get what they want from a world controlled by men. Each became notorious for her beauty and fame: St. Mary in Alexandria, the Las Vegas of her era; our two contemporaries in America’s hot spots and tabloids.
What marks them as different is the way their lives ended. The first died in the desert, the others appropriately in their beds. St. Mary is honored as the role model for all whose lives were radically transformed through faith in Jesus Christ. Not by accident is her life recalled on the Sunday of Great Lent before Palm Sunday. She proved how radically one’s life can be transfigured through the grace of the Holy Spirit for one who abandons herself to Christ. She related her tale to St. Zosimas, a monk of Palestine. The Lord must have sent an angel who told her to join the pilgrims from Egypt going to Jerusalem for the Cross Exaltation Feast. She paid her fare the only way she knew how—to offer her body. Some force (was it the same angel?) prevented her from entering the temple with the crowd, and she realized how sinful was her way of life. She didn’t belong with true believers. And what she related to St. Zosimas explained how he found her—alone, shriveled, burnt by the sun, and yet full of spiritual fire.
The other two, Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith recently departed this life, were not as fortunate as St. Mary. Nothing as life-shattering happened to either of them. Both ended this lifetime prematurely, both addicted to sedatives of some sort to help them fall asleep—and no wonder. Neither ever learned what St. Mary discovered—only Jesus Christ can fulfill the yearning of the soul. Christ alone is the greatest Lover, who satisfies the longings of our bodies, souls and minds. To accept men in a woman’s life without having him grow together with her beyond the bedroom and forward through a lifetime of experiences is to be left unfulfilled and alone. Such women must go to bed alone just for sleep, yet when sleep won’t come, they look to the pharmacist to provide something that will free the soul of guilt and offer them peace of mind.
To live in these times is to have the lives of such “celebrities” thrust upon us whether we want to know about them or not. I don’t recall any formal religion mentioned in Marilyn’s case, but Anna Nicole wore a huge cross pendant at various times. Did it have some spiritual meaning, or was it just bling? In any case, there appears to have been nobody who would explain to her the outcome of rampant promiscuity. No pastor told her that she would never discover true love in the arms of one man after another. That she was the object of night time comedians. That even now those who claim her infant do so in order to manage the money that comes with the baby.
Anna Nicole made Marilyn her role model, and she ended up just as her prototype. Dreaming of fortune and fame, they offered their bodies to men who would make it happen. They used their bodies but abused their souls. Americans prefer to have our stories come to a happy end, but it wasn’t to be for those symbols of the “good life.” Yet I wonder how many of our nation’s women would consider St. Mary of Egypt a success?