3rd Sunday of Lent (Year A) - 12 March
12th March 2023
3rd Sunday of Lent (Year A) - 12 March
“Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could.” - St Gregory Nazianzen
A reflection on today's Gospel reading by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"In the garden of every heart goes on a great struggle, and only the soul and God know it. As planet affects planet, as the moon in some way moves all the surging tides of the world, so too every heart is stirred by influences of another world. One of the most beautiful stories about a soul struggle is that of the woman at the well. The place was Samaria, which is situated between Judea and Galilee.
"One day, Our Blessed Lord, Who was on His way from Judea to Galilee, did not avoid Samaria. He came near the village of Sichar and seated Himself at Jacob’s Well. The time of the day was noon, and Our Blessed Lord is described as weary from His journey. He was weary in His work, not of it. Weariness can be put to a purpose. Two of His most remarkable converts were made when He was tired. While He sat at the well, a woman came to draw water.
"Our Blessed Lord began the conversation on the level of human necessity and asked her to give Him a drink. Whenever God wishes to do us a favour, He often begins by asking for one. The purpose of His request is to create an emptiness in the heart. He, by Whom all things were made, the Creator of mountains and brooks and rivers, is not ashamed to ask a draught of water from the hand of one of His sinful creatures.
"Her answer was ‘How is it that Thou, who art a Jew, do ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?’ Among us an enemy might ask and receive a drink of water without fear of compromising himself or his opponent; but not so in the East. There the giving and receiving of a drink of water is a covenant of hospitality.
"Our Lord answered ‘If thou knew what it is God gives, and Who this is that is saying to thee, “Give Me to drink”, it would have been for thee to ask Him instead, and He would have given thee living water.’
"The role of giver and seeker is reversed. The seeker becomes the giver; the giver, the seeker. Having asked for water, He sets forth the Gift under the image of water, as elsewhere, where men are waiting on Him for Bread, He sets forth the same ‘Gift’ under the figure of Bread. He links the heavenly to the earthly and uses the earthly to explain the heavenly.
"He speaks of three steps in coming to Him.
"The first is knowledge – there is a touching reproach of her ignorance and bigotry, which blind so many. Before one can ask, one must know. The second step is desire: ‘Thou would have asked.’ Knowledge awakens appetite and longing to possess; therefore we must know God before we can want Him. It is our ignorance that fails to bring to our lips the cry ‘Give me to drink.’ The third link in the chain is the giving. The asking must precede the giving. The gift is Himself. The Father does not give a creature or an angel or a seraph; He gives His Son. ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’
"The woman saw the weary man, but not the Rest for weary souls; she saw the thirsty pilgrim, but not the One Who had quenched the world’s thirst. The woman missed the deeper meaning of His speech. She took the figurative literally, and the spiritual, naturally. She now addressed Him with some courtesy, calling Him ‘Sir,’ and then added, ‘Thou has no bucket, and the well is deep; How, then, can Thou provide living water?’ The woman thought Our Lord was speaking of elementary water.
"The woman then covered the possibility that He might have discovered another well as she asked, ‘Art Thou a greater man than our father Jacob? It was he who gave us this well; He himself and his sons and his cattle have drunk out of it.’
"Our Blessed Lord did not entangle Himself in a direct reply to the question ‘Art Thou a greater man than our father Jacob?’ but He implicitly did give a reply. ‘Anyone who drinks such water as this Will be thirsty again afterwards; The man who drinks the water I give him will not know thirst any more. The water I give him will be a spring of water within him, that flows continually to bring him everlasting life.’
"Our Lord does not condemn earthly streams or forbid them. He merely says, ‘You will never be satisfied.’ The believer has an inner well in his soul which, too, must have its Water. Earthly water never rises above its own level, and so the best of earthly thrills and pleasures can rise no higher than the earth. They begin and end there. The Living Water with which Christ fills the soul, springing from Heaven, leads to Heaven again. Flowing from the Infinite, it elevates to the Infinite, finds its level in the river of the water of life which flows in the midst of celestial Paradise.
"There was a certain blind longing awakened in the soul of the woman who had thirsted so long and who already had slaked her thirst at one of the muddiest pools of sensual gratification. She could not understand the miraculous Water, but she thought possibly she could be spared from walking out at noon, a mile and a half, to draw water. It could very well be that she expected to receive this Water without any effort at all, which would account for the words which Our Blessed Lord addressed to her next. ‘Go home, fetch thy husband, and come back here.’
"The words can only be regarded as spoken for the calling out of that very answer which they did call out, namely, the bringing her to wholesome shame. They attained the object for which they were uttered – her confession of guilt. The conviction of sin is the beginning of the great work of the Spirit.
"‘I have no husband.’ Jesus answered, ‘True enough, thou has no husband. Thou has had five husbands, but the man who is with thee now is no husband of thine, thou has told the truth over this.’
"Our Lord’s condemnation of the woman’s honest confession teaches that we should make the best of an ignorant sinner’s words. An unskilful physician of souls would probably have rebuked the woman sharply for her wickedness, but Our Lord said, ‘Thou has told the truth over this.’ She had asked for Living Water; she knew not that the well must first be dug, that hard clay needs to be removed. ‘Go home, fetch thy husband,’ is the first stroke summoning her to repentance.
"‘Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.’ The woman was making a wild attempt to get off the hook. Our Lord was now beginning, in her opinion, to meddle. Conversion is in the moral order. The woman would make it solely intellectual. She wanted religion to be a matter of discussion, when the Saviour was making it one of decision. She had been compelled to own up, so she adopted a method of raising a theological point. ‘Well, it was our fathers’ way to worship on this mountain, although you tell us that the place where men ought to worship is in Jerusalem.’ She was now drawing Him off some unwelcome truths about her life, and she introduced a doctrinal problem; thus she would avoid shame to herself.
"Our Lord answered, ‘Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you will not go to this mountain, nor yet to Jerusalem, to worship the Father. You worship you cannot tell what, we worship knowing what it is we worship; salvation, after all, is to come from the Jews; but the time is coming, nay, has already come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; such men as these the Father claims for His worshippers.’
"The Blessed Trinity is here implied, for there is the Father, the Spirit, Which is the Holy Ghost, and the Truth, Which is the Son Who speaks with the woman. God the Father has not always been worshipped. Christ has come to reveal Him as such. He reveals Him not just as Creator, Who made the mountain and the insects, but as One Who communicates an existence like His own. Worship must take its character from the Nature of God, and not from the nature of any people or nation or race. Almost all attempts at religious unity start with man instead of with God the Father. All who are looking for the unity of religion must not start whittling away the Divine Truths. Rather, as He said, ‘Start at the top; get the right understanding of God, then you will be one.’
"When He said, ‘The time is coming,’ she said, ‘I know the Christ is coming; and when He comes, He will tell us everything.’ Can you imagine the surprise of that woman when this chance passerby at the well said to her, ‘I, Who speak to thee, am the Christ’? All the longings of thousands of years, all of them were pointing to this hour when He said, ‘I am the Christ…I am the Teacher of the Truth; I am the Son of That Father.’
"She was so amazed at what she heard that she ran into the city and left her water bucket at the well. Maybe she forgot it; maybe she left it as a symbol that she no longer wanted earthly water. She ran into the city. A few hours later, picture this woman coming out of the city; trailing behind her are the men of Samaria. They invited Him into their own village, out of which for the first time, in the hearing of the world, came the great title that He bears pre-eminently, the title given by the woman at the well, and the men and women of the city, the glorious title – Saviour of the world!" (Life is Worth Living)
Prayer for Christlikeness (St John Henry Newman)
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go; Flood my soul with Your spirit and life; Penetrate and possess my whole being so completely that all my life may be only a radiance of yours; Shine through me and be so in me that everyone with whom I come into contact may feel Your presence within me. Let them look up and see no longer me—but only Jesus. Amen. 💖🙏💐
Food for thought
Do not think of God as always looking around corners with an angel as a secretary to jot down all your sins. He is also looking at your good deeds, seeing every drink of cold water you give in His name, every visit to the sick you make in His name, every act of kindness you do for your fellowman in His name.