Note that although this event takes place in the wilderness (denoted by the trees), Zosima is shown celebrating mass at a proper altar with a stone-built base (beneath which floats a titulus with his name). He holds out the bread and wine to the saintly hermit. The point of this episode is of course to emphasise that for all her great sanctity, and the reverence in which she is held by Zosima, even Mary is dependent on a male priest for the sacraments, without which she cannot be received into the Church.