Enderle Books
Cycle
A
Readings:
1) Exodus 17: 3-7 2) Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 3) John 4: 5-42
On
this Third Sunday of
Lent we continue our journey with the Lord towards the Cross and
towards the Resurrection.
We began this Lenten season with the story of the temptations that the
Lord
suffered and how he overcame them. Last Sunday we saw how Abraham
followed the
call of the Lord and we meditated on our own life and our call to
sanctity. Today
we are going to take another decisive step on our journey with the Lord.
Saint
John tells us, in
the Gospel, through the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman,
that
all of us have a thirst for God and that only Our Lord, Jesus Christ,
can
quench that thirst. The recounting of the encounter between Jesus and
the
Samaritan woman begins when Jesus arrives in a small town in Samaria
called
Sicar. Samaria is located in the north of what today we call the Holy
Land. The
inhabitants of that region were looked won upon by the Jews who said
that the
Samaritans had allowed themselves to be influenced by foreign religions
and had
incorporated part of those religions in their rites and liturgical
celebrations. Because of this they were considered to be pagans. The
Jews did
not usually talk nor did they have anything to do with the Samaritans.
Because
of this the apostles were perplexed when they saw Jesus talking to the
Samaritan woman.
In
Sicar there was a
well that had supplied the town with water for centuries. Years before
it had
belonged to Jacob, one of the sons of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Our
Lord
arrived in the town at midday after a long day of walking in the dusty
roads of
the region. He was tired and he sat down at the well. In spite of being
tired,
he chose that place and that moment to make himself known to the
Samaritan
people as the promised Messiah, the anointed of God, the Savior. Jesus
proclaimed for the first time that he is the only font of eternal life.
He told
the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty
again; but
whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.”
Our
Lord used the water
as an image to talk about the grace that springs from the divine font
of his
crucifixion and death. In the Middle East water is vital. The first
quality
that Jesus uses to describe his water is this: living water. He tells
the
Samaritan woman that the water that he gives is living water. The
people who
live in countries where water is scarce know very well the difference
between
well water o dead water and living water that springs forth without
ceasing. The
Jewish people always remembered the living water that sprang from the
rock that
Moses struck two times with his rod in the desert and from which the
Hebrew
people drank in abundance. The living water of Jesus has two qualities.
Whoever
drinks of it will not be thirsty. The spiritual water of Jesus gives
love for
the things of the Lord. When we drink of it we easily overcome the
desire in
our lives for perishable things. Jesus came to give us life of the
spirit, the
life that begins here when we accept, through faith, the divinity of
Jesus.
In
that living water, in
the divine grace that springs from the passion and death of Our Lord,
we find
the road to eternal life. Jesus tells, “Whoever is thirsty” to “come to
the
(living) water.” He offers us salvation and he tells us that the thirst
for God
can only be satisfied through him.