![[Saint Mary of Egypt]](saintm22.gif "40kb gif painting of Saint Mary of Egypt, artist unknown; if you have information on this image, please email me; please do not write to ask about the image")
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross she moved with the crowds to the church, looking for customers. At the church door she found herself repelled, unable to open the door; she was overcome with remorse for her life and exclusion from the Church. She repented, and asked for Our Lady's guidance; a voice told that to find rest, she should cross the Jordan River. The next day she crossed the river, wandered into the desert, and took up the life of a hermit for nearly 50 years as penance.
She lived on herbs, berries, and whatever came to hand. She met Saint Zosimus of Palestine. She once told him to come back exactly one year from that day; when he did, he found she'd died; with a lion help, he dug her grave. Zosimus later wrote a biography of her, and her life was a popular story in the Middle Ages.
c.421 in the desert near the River Jordan of natural causes relics at Rome, Naples, Cremona, and Antwerp
penitent women reformed prostitutes sexual temptation
being chased from the church by an angel with a sword kneeling before a skull naked but clothed with long hair receiving Holy Communion from Saint Zosimus sitting under a palm tree and looking across the Jordan washing her hair in the Jordan with Mary Magdalene with the lion who dug her grave woman holding three loaves of bread
Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate Catholic Encyclopedia For All The Saints Google Directory New Catholic Dictionary Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson Saint Andrew of Crete