St. Mary of Egypt — The Catholic Saint Who Couldn't Walk Through a Church Door

Everyday Saints: A Catholic Podcast · Jul 30, 2026 · 20m · transcript

In this episode of Everyday Saints, a Catholic podcast about the real lives of the saints, we tell the story of St. Mary of Egypt — one of the most extraordinary and least-known figures in Christian history. At 12 she ran away to Alexandria. For 17 years she lived entirely for herself. Then, on a whim, she joined a boat of pilgrims to Jerusalem — and at the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, something she couldn't explain stopped her cold. What followed was 47 years alone in the desert, a monk named Zosimas, a walk across the Jordan River, and a death that left behind one of the…