St Nicholas Orthodox Church Southbridge Massachusetts

04 21 2024 Fifth Sunday in Lent - St Mary of Egypt - Divine Liturgy St Nicholas Southbridge

Today's sermon, “St. Mary’s Exodus,” compares the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt when the People of God wandered for forty years in the Wilderness to purge themselves from sin with St. Mary’s exodus (leaving) from Egypt to the Holy Land and then into the Wilderness (Desert) across the Jordan. There, in a wild and dangerous place, Mary lived for 38 years, struggling against her desire to return to Egypt and her old way of being for half that time. St. Mary reminds us that we all must go into the “desert,” whether physically or spiritually, and in the silence there, begin to identify our sins and begin the long struggle against them.

Link to today’s Liturgy: https://youtu.be/FNeKyPTtcOo