(c.344-c.421) Mary, a beautiful, wealthy child, ran away to Alexandria, Egypt, at 12 years old. For 17 years, she was a dancer and prostitute. Around 30 years old, she went to Jerusalem to try to find customers among the Catholic pilgrims coming for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. When repeatedly and invisibly repelled at the door of a church, she repented and spent her remaining 50 years of life doing penance as a hermit in the desert.
It was said that an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Theotokos” was the cause of Mary’s conversion and repentance. The life she lived thereafter as an ascetic was her “living amends,” a way to do penance and pray in reparation for her past sins. Do holy images play a role in your prayer life? Are there practices you have adopted as “living amends”?
“Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance” (Matthew 3:8).
Reflection by Brad Farmer