The Cup of Our Heavenly Father - Homily for the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt (2026)

My Fathers and brethren, we’ve arrived at the last week of Lent.  Many of us are exhausted, some discouraged, perhaps even given up, waiting for Pascha to bandage up our wounds and hope for a better Lent next year.  Or perhaps we’re succeeding in whatever way we might imagine success looks like.  Either way, it’s easy to begin our calculations, or rather, to revert to a calculating mind with regards to our souls. 

Today’s Gospel has something to offer those of us who spend a significant portion of our spiritual life in such calculations.  We read that as Christ is travelling to Jerusalem with His disciples, the Sons of Thunder, Ss. James and John, assume that they are going to Jerusalem because Christ will begin His messianic Kingdom from there and rule.  As faithful disciples, who were given authority to preach, to heal all manner of disease and cast out devils, they calculated what their reward should be.  They wanted to sit at Christ’s right and left hand in His kingdom.   

How often do we have the same perspective—if not during Lent, then at other times in our life?  How often do we look at ourselves and expect a reward from God?  Perhaps we kept the fast better than previous years or finally shaken off a particular vice.  Perhaps we’ve consciously put prayer first.  All these things are good, but as soon as we calculate, as soon as we scrutinize our works, as soon as we expect that God owes us, we show the same lack of understanding as the disciples in today’s Gospel.   

And so Christ asks us the same question He asks His disciples, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?”  That is—are you willing to accept God’s will for your life?  Again, without thinking of what this means, we say “Yes, we are able”.  But the cup Christ is asking us to drink is everything that God allows to be in our life.  The cup includes all the people whom we cross paths with, who irritate us, who insult us, who make demands of us.  The cup includes all our illnesses and our sorrows.  The cup includes all the tragedies and terrible mistakes that occur.  It is a bitter cup indeed, but this is what Christ is asking of us as Christians.  Drinking the cup is the fulfillment of our monastic vows and we were blessed to witness again this past weekend with the tonsures of Fathers George and Ambrose.  Our response to this invitation from Christ shows whether we have been living for Him or only for ourselves. 

Without realizing it, we often want the spiritual life on our own terms.  We’ll put up with whatever is asked of us—the prayers, the fasting, the acts of mercy and so forth, as long as we can still get what we want.  And we know whatever this “what” might be, because whenever we can’t have it, whether that’s health or a good reputation, or a promotion, or money, or a relaxing vacation, or a some hobby or diversion, whatever!  Whenever it’s out of reach or taken away, we react.  And so when the trials and storms of life come upon us, when people who torment us don’t leave, when the task in front of us in unbearable, then we say “no”.  We fight and we resist and we react against the cup that God is handing to us because we wanted those other things more.  And so we find that we don’t live lives much differently than worldly people. 

Christ offers us the cup because He wants to heal us.  Our will is what is fallen and corrupt and the source of our spiritual pain.  And in drinking the cup, we say what Christ tells His Father in the garden, “Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36).  By accepting what God allows for us, we can heal our fallen wills by joining them go God’s will.  By accepting the people God allows into our life, we learn to understand that they are His physicians sent to remove the tumor of pride from our souls and excise the self-love from our hardened hearts.  By enduring our failures, our afflictions, we can see God’s Providence in our life and finally be humbled. 

Again, accepting Christ’s cup is a way to release us from our calculating mindset in the spiritual life.  How often do we agonize in some misfortune with the thoughts of “if only”.  “If only I had known sooner, this would not have happened”.  “If only I had cut ties with that person, things would have been better now”.  And so on and so forth.  But all of these “If onlys” merely show that we think the main problems in our life are simply errors in calculation.   

“If only” is such a fruitless exercise because we can’t do anything about the past to change where we are now.  And more especially, it is also a failure to see God’s Providence.  “If only” is a failure to realize that the bitter cup comes to us from God Himself, and only incidentally through our neighbors, through our enemies, through our mistakes.  St. Ignaty reminds us that when Christ says, “Shall I not drink the cup my Father has sent Me?”, He acknowledges that His Passion is not coming from Judas, nor the Jews, nor the Romans.  It is what His Father is asking of Him, and He accepts it.   

Finally, let us also not be calculating in our failures, either.  We make up our own plans for how to overcome our shortcomings that don’t include Christ.  We can be discouraged by repeated falls into sin, thinking that it means we aren’t making progress.  And if we should have some seeming victory over a particular vice, it can be exhausting to find ourselves still tempted by it, months, years, or even decades later.   

So this Sunday we are also given the example of St. Mary of Egypt.  She led a debauched and wicked life for 17 years.  And she spent the next 17 in bitter torments by her passions in the desert.  This is even though she completely gave up her sinful life, was fasting to the extreme, and was in absolute solitude.   

Saint Pachomius tells us that, “it is patience that reveals every grace to you and it is through patience that the saints received all that was promised them”.  What if St. Mary had a calculating mind during her time in the desert?  What if after a year she concluded that repentance doesn’t seem to make a difference anyway?  She could have easily gone back to her former life.  What if after a decade she had enough of it, seeing no relief?  What if after 16 years she threw in the towel?  At this point, she couldn’t have returned to her former life even if she wanted to.  Her physical beauty at this time had completely wasted away in asceticism.  What human hope could she count on that her life would get better?  And yet in her patience, God revealed His rich mercies—she was given supernatural knowledge of the Scriptures, the gifts of clairvoyance and prophesy, walking on water, levitating in prayer.  

In all our trials and misfortunes, we are given a choice.  We can either frantically re-calculate and fret about what we lost and how we’re going to get it all back.  Or we can see them as God desperately seeking us, God desperately desiring to direct us back to Him.  If we remembered that the only thing God cares about is the salvation of our souls and that He will do whatever it takes to make us His own, we might recognize that our wills are not always directed toward our own salvation.  We might remember that we need to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first, above all else.   

My Fathers and brethren, Lent is nearing an end, the contest is drawing to a close.  In place of calculating our gains and losses, our successes or total failures, Christ offers us the same thing—the cup His Heavenly Father wants to give us.  The solution to our calculating minds and the true victory that is offered for all of us today, no matter where we stand right now, is to be able to say, or even for those of us who are weak, to want to be able to say, from our hearts “Thy will be done”. Amen.