Lent Week 4: Tuesday
Purifying Water…
The first reading brings to us the mysterious vision of Ezekiel who stood at the entrance of the Temple. There he saw water flowing from the right side of the building, at first a mere trickle, but soon it rose greatly that it has become a river too deep to cross without swimming.
The water flowed towards the direction of the Dead Sea, so called because it was considered stale and unproductive, unfit for living creatures, due to its toxic salinity. But when the Temple’s waters flowed into that sea, it carried goodness, purity, and healing to the stagnant waters. Wherever the water flowed, it produced abundance, freshness, and restoration.
The Fathers of the Church discerned from this that the Temple was referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. The water flowing from the right side of the Temple signified the blood and water that flowed from the wound at the Crucified Christ’s side. The blood prophesied the Eucharist and the water foreshadowed Baptism.
Our baptismal water is just a trickle, too, enough to wash over the head of the candidate at the font. But when a person opens his heart to the Word of God and desires to fulfill the divine will, graces overflow into the life of the Christian. This is what we will celebrate come Easter time: the grace of the Resurrection that enters our life through the sacrament of Baptism, the water that purifies the salt of original sin in our souls. We will participate in the glory of the Risen One by allowing his grace to bring to life all that is dead in us.
All of us have our own “dead sea” in our personal history. Let us strive to take advantage of these remaining days of Lent to invite living waters to purify and restore us to a renewed friendship with Jesus and serve our fellow men and women. May we remain faithful to prayer, fasting, sacrifice and Confession, our pathway to the torrent of God’s love.
