Finding Pelagia: Coming Home to Orthodoxy (Part 3)

Why Me, Lord? 

“So, you’ll need to choose a patron saint for your Chrismation, Amy.”

   As my priest said this I immediately panicked. It wasn’t that long ago that I had learned about a whole universe of saints and martyrs who had lived and died for the Faith. How could I pick one? Some said choose according to your birthday and choose the saint that is venerated on that day. It seemed odd to me to have the only commonality between me and my patron saint be a date. So I continued to search and pray.

    Then one day I read about Saint Pelagia. I was certain she would be my patron. As I read what little I could find about her, God flooded my mind with thoughts about her and my kinship with her grew and grew. 

  Pelagia was an actress and prostitute in the early 4^th century in Antioch. Her outer beauty belied the inner ugliness she felt. And no amount of public attention or envy could comfort her. She knew the life she was living was not the life she needed.

   Christ has come so the world can know and discern the good, the true, and the beautiful. Pelagia longed for truth, for she knew she was not good nor truly beautiful in the eyes of God.

   Pelagia saw the ‘good’ in the clergy even as they watched her walking along the city streets of Antioch. Even their looks of derision couldn’t stop her from entering the church doors in her quest for truth. And as she stood in the midst of the congregation, as the eyes of disgusted wives, former clients and audience members stared at this outrageous woman, Pelagia was  overwhelmed by the beauty of the Lord’s House. Her ears were attuned to the words of the Divine Liturgy and she knew she had found Truth.

  And in this I felt very close to Pelagia. I, too, yearned for goodness, beauty, and truth. I, too, had experienced the realization that I was not who God would have me to be. Pelagia refered to herself as “a sinner and disciple of the devil”. How I wish I could say more of myself. But like Pelagia, nothing will keep me from pressing on towards the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14).

  I imagine what Pelagia must have been feeling after that first encounter with the Living God. Like Isaiah, she must have become undone. So much so that she gave away all he earthly possessions and she flew away. Away to the caves of the desert. Away to be alone with Christ.

  Oh, Pelagia, I am a sinner like you. Were you like me? Did you wonder, “Why me, Lord?”

Did you wonder why the Lord would take any interest in you? Did you feel His uncreated Light flooding into your darkness? And in that Light, did you see what you were?

 You were like me, “a sinner and disciple of the devil”. And I like you, am undone.

Kris Kristofferson wrote a song entitled, Why Me, Lord, long after Pelagia had left this earth, but the words could have easily come from her lips:

     “Lord help me, Jesus. I’ve wasted it so.

Help me, Jesus. I know what I am.”

Thank you, Pelagia for helping me know what I am.