Sunday 3 (A) – Lent: The Woman at the Well (John 4)
Jesus made the Samaritan woman face up to the “five-husband lie” she was living. As the Truth
in person, he mirrored back to her her own distorted image of herself, her lack of inner truth. He did not, of course, do
it to hurt her, but as a first step to free her from her hurt. Such steps are themselves painful, not because of the one who
heals, but because of the one who is hurting. Jesus offered her freedom itself in the living water of which he spoke. His
thirst was God’s thirst for her faith and moral integrity; hers too was a spiritual thirst, a thirst that would be quenched
only by the living water Jesus was offering. That living water is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus gives to convict us of our sin,
to bring us to repentance and so to give us the joy of salvation. The Spirit makes us face the diagnosis, willing to accept
the treatment and, therefore, to experience the joy of spiritual health.
Because Jesus saw into her heart, the Samaritan woman understood that he was a prophet of some kind. But he
told her that he was more than a prophet: in using the phrase “I am He” (reminiscent of Yahweh’s self-revelation
as “I Am Who Am”), Jesus told her that he was God, the Messiah, the Christ. For only God can see into the heart,
tell all that we have ever done and give that Gift which can heal all spiritual brokenness. In her excitement, the woman drops
everything and runs back into the town: she must, indeed, have been truly bursting with excitement to get the entire town
to come to the well! Her encounter of salvation with Jesus became the source of the encounter of faith for the whole town.
She had been offered the living water and had become herself a well for others. When someone knows his or her heart to be
read by Christ, yet not condemned, but invited to repent and be filled with God, they cannot contain the hope and exultation
they feel. It spreads like wildfire; it breaks through the thick monotony and dark uncertainty of life.
Each of us is the Samaritan woman. Jesus comes, tired from his search for us, and sits by the water-holes
of our lives – wherever it is we go to be refreshed. He asks each of us to give him a drink of our faith. He does not
fear any sinner, for he loves every one of us to death. He fears rather that we leave him tired and thirsty without talking
to him and without letting him reveal to us the lies in our lives that truly hurt us. He fears that we go away from our wells
without asking him for living water, without recognizing Who He Is or understanding the gift of the Spirit he desires to give.
He fears that we pretend to be without sin, when in fact sin is parching our souls to the point of spiritual death. He does
not fear our sin, for he has vanquished it. He fears for the sinner lest the sinner be vanquished by sin because he will not
let it be revealed and be forgiven.
He wants each of us to sit and talk with him so that we can discover who we truly are and who he truly is,
and in that discovery be set on fire with hope and joy and true communion in his life. He wants each of us to go to our respective
living places and to excite others to go and meet him at the well and discover him for themselves and so enter into the divine
communion. He wants each of us to be missionaries and witnesses to him before the harvest of our communities which is so ripe,
yet so parched because so heedless of God.
This saving encounter with Jesus takes place especially in two major opportunities offered to us: in confession
and in holy communion. In both, Jesus invites us to see ourselves and his self in truth. In both, he gives us his very self,
his Holy Spirit and the loving embrace of his heavenly Father. The externals of these two sacraments seem almost too humble,
too good to be true for something so exalted as an encounter with the Trinity. But the humility of Jesus sitting by the well
is none other than the humility of the Trinity who comes through the simple words and actions of a sinful priest and through
the simplest of sacramental signs.
We cannot hide our truth from Christ. We must not pretend that we can hide it from ourselves. We need to be
open, humble and fervently grateful that confession and communion offer us a personal encounter with God. His loving and compassionate
heart can only flood us with living water if we are open to it, on his terms. Do not let today’s beautiful Gospel enter
one ear and exit the other; do not let its message be a scrap of information among the other thousand you take in today. Let
it be a life-changing moment of truth, for yourselves and for those with whom you live. Seek the Lord while he may be found,
lest, when he is gone, you die of thirst.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, February 27th, 2005: St. Andrew
Apostle, Silver
Spring:
5.00 pm Vigil & 10.00 am
