THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT A
I THIRST FOR YOU
JN 4: 5-42
It seems that Jesus did not sit by the well just to rest on that noon-break. He seemed to be waiting for someone. When a woman came, the Lord asked her for water. When she began to hesitate because Jews and Samaritans don’t mix, the Lord spoke of a special kind of water he alone could give; he had within him life-giving water.
The tables were turned. Now it was the woman asking Jesus for water. She admitted her thirst to Jesus; she was even more thirsty than the Lord was. How happy she was to have found this man with a promise of unending supply of water!
Water is our companion in life and also our constant desire. We need to consume water in order to live and that is why it is life-giving. But we need to avoid too much of it lest we drown, and that is why water can be also destructive. But water is a necessity for who among us does not experience going thirsty every now and then?
On a deeper level, like this woman would later realize, we thirst for more than water. Like the woman, we thirst for meaning. We thirst for forgiveness. We thirst for a union that grants fulfillment. We thirst for truth and light. We thirst for the Messiah to come. We are thirsty for God.
Jesus is never without water, said Tertullian. He is never without this water which is the church, the well from which it overflows. But this water is not ordinary but life-giving because this water is filled with blessings from above. This water, above all, is the Holy Spirit, who satiates our thirst and connects us to Jesus and to the Father.
This Lent is an opportune moment to examine the thirst not of our throats but of our hearts. Do you thirst for forgiveness? Do you thirst for reconciliation with people you love or people you hurt? Do you thirst for interior freedom from your sins and weaknesses? Do you thirst, not for mere self-improvement, but for relationship with God? Ordinary water cannot quench this thirst but Jesus’ Life-giving Water can!
Let us then, meet Jesus at the well. He is waiting for you. Spend time with him in prayer. Disclose your heart to him in confession. Listen to him in his Word. Celebrate with him the joy of being back in the embrace of God.
#ourparishpriest 2023
