MARGARET SCOTT
IOCC Parish Representative
St. Nicholas Orthodox Church
San Anselmo, CA
On the fifth Sunday of our Lenten journey of repentance, we commemorate the life of St. Mary of Egypt. For 47 years, St. Mary withstood the loneliness, hunger, thirst, heat, and cold that accompanied her solitary journey in the desert wilderness. What a guide she is for us who strive to deny our flesh in order to care for our souls. And when after all those years she encountered the monk Father Zosimas, who had been sent by God to record her story, what did she ask? “But tell me first, Abba, how do the Christians live? How is the Church guided?”
After all those years alone, St. Mary’s first concern was for the Church. She, who through her ascetic efforts had entered into the realm of the angelic voices singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy”—she asked for the state of the Church, for our witness, for our presence in the world, just as our Lord and Savior asks. We may be grateful to IOCC that in answer to her question, we may reply, “The Orthodox Christians do live as Christ taught us to live—loving and caring for those in need.”
The pan-Orthodox work of IOCC provides a compassionate and universal presence in the world, relieving suffering whenever and wherever it exists; not only through its emergency responses but in offering sustainable solutions. By God’s grace, IOCC leads us to a future in which all human beings may, as IOCC’s vision says, “have means to live with dignity, respect, and hope.”
More Lenten Resources
