March 15^th 2020. Third Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL: Jn 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Jn 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.

“I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him,
“I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him.
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
“We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the saviour of the world.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that he is thirsty. But his real thirst is that she would receive life from him, the “living water” that he longs to give each and every one of us. This is how it always is with God. When he asks for something from us - our obedience, our trust - it is only because he wants to give us a thousand times more. In fact, he says to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God . . .” God thirst for us, but where or how can we encounter him? Not in a particular place but with an attitude of trust and intimacy. The story of this woman with her five husbands reveals that she had tried to resolve her incompleteness through relationships that ultimately failed. Following her encounter with Jesus, however, this woman begins to drink from the authentic source of life: relationship with the true God. We need this blessed period of Lent in order to make the same leap of quality ourselves! It is time for us to start seeking the true God, to overcome our fixations with self-referential relationships that do not resolve our existential woes. It is time to give up the useless search for illusory sources of life. These false sources of “life” are generally objects that we accumulate, desires that torture us, or fixations that alienate us from what is good and true. The real God seeks our heart, our spirit, the deepest truth of our being. In short, he wants you and me.

Jesus seems to be looking for something from this woman. He is thirsty. But his real thirst is that our thirst for life  be satisfied!

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you: Give me a drink! You would have asked him and he would have given you living water." The Samaritan woman has heard Jesus ask for water and thinks she has met someone who wants something from her, but discovers that he is someone who only wants to give. This is the remarkable thirst of God.  The Catechism says an important thing about this text: “Jesus is thirsty; his question to the woman arises from the depths of this God who desires us "(C.C.C. 2560). This is an experience we have a thousand times with God: when it seems that he is asking for something, we discover the opposite. In every act of obedience or trust, what we receive is always much more than what we give, and when we feel we are doing something for God, that is precisely the moment when the Lord is doing something for us . . . "If you knew the gift of God." To know the generosity of God is to know God.

God thirsts for us, but where or how can we meet him?

Where or how do we truly encounter God? The Samaritans had their rites and the Jews equally, but "the time is coming - and this is it - in which true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth". In Greek the word "adore" is the same as for "kiss". Worship implies approaching God with an intimate attitude, not with a ritual formality. Where can we meet God in an intimate way? Jesus says that this does not happen in a particular place, but in a particular way, not here or there but in an attitude that can be had everywhere. So this woman's thirst is quenched unexpectedly, and she runs away to tell everyone what happened to her: she met the Messiah. And, notably, she leave the jug there. But Jesus does not take this jug to have a drink. He no longer needs it. His thirst to give this woman living water has been satisfied.

When Jesus reveals to the woman that he is aware of her emotional incompleteness, of her failed search for satisfaction, she begins to speak on a more profound level and demonstrates that she is longing for an encounter with the true God

What happened to the woman during the encounter? The dialogue with Jesus had brought her story to the surface. It is revealed that she had a series of emotional failures and five husbands, a paradoxical image of a solitude never definitively overcome and a bitter succession of disappointments. She had drunk that water that never quenches her thirst, and Jesus had revealed it all to her. But she had not felt judged by Jesus. Instead she felt understood, recognized. We all encounter this risk: to go through life with a fixation on relationships, husbands who are not true husbands, accumulating incompleteness and dissatisfaction. The Gospel text contains a play on the ambiguity of the word "husband", which in Aramaic also means "idol". It is at this point that the woman stops trying to evade being up-front with Jesus and she makes a leap in quality. Now she has begun to look for more: “Lord, I see that you are a prophet! Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; but you say that the place of worship is in Jerusalem". She is looking for an encounter with the true God.

This Lent, may we turn away from the false sources of life and turn to the God who seeks us

We need this blessed period of Lent in order to make the same leap of quality ourselves.  It is time for us to start seeking the true God, to stop accumulating spouse-idols who do not resolve our existential woes. It is time to give up the useless search for illusory sources of life. These false sources of “life” are generally objects that we accumulate, desires that torture us, or fixations that alienate us from what is good and true. The real God seeks our heart, our spirit, the deepest truth of our being. He is searching simply for you and for me.