As human beings and children of God, our deepest need is for love to be loved, to love.

Third Sunday in Lent. March 6th, 2010

“Give me a drink.” This simple statement begins the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman in our Gospel today. This simple statement, “Give me a drink” reveals a lot about Jesus, and how he draws this woman into a new and profound relationship with God. The way in which Jesus deals with this woman can also teach us a lot about how Jesus deals with us; how He constantly try to draws us into a deeper friendship and deeper union with Him.

As we begin the story, it is important to note a couple of details: first it was midday- the start of the heat of the day. People just would not go to the well at the midday- it was too hot. They would go first thing in the morning or closer to sundown; it was cooler then. You’d only go at midday if you wanted to avoid others, that is, if you had a reason to hide.

And so, the fact that the Samaritan woman comes at this time reveals to us a lot about her. It reveals that she is definitely an outcast. First, she was a Samaritan, hated by the Jews; second, she was a woman; and third, she was living in sin and so committing public scandal. With this being the case, how does Jesus deal with the situation, with her?

Well first, Jesus takes a bold step here even speaking to a Samaritan woman, not to mention one who is trying to hide. A Jewish man would certainly not address a woman in public; and certainly would not address a Samaritan woman, not to mention a Samaritan woman living in public sin. No wonder why, the Samaritan woman is totally surprised by Jesus; but she was about to be surprised even more.

Jesus then says to her, “Give me a drink.” Unthinkable! If he accepts a drink from her a sinner, a Samaritan, a worse a woman, he will surely become unclean according to Jewish law. Yet, Jesus is poor; He has no bucket. He has no vessel to drink with, but He is really thirsty- it is noon and he has been walking in the heat of the day. Is his thirst just for water, or is it a thirst for something more?

Jesus asks her for water, yet he will say that he is the source of a new type of water—Living Water that will satisfy unlike anything she might have drunk before. Jesus uses this simple request of water to get at something much deeper- a deeper thirst that Him Himself has; He thirsts for her love, for Her heart, for her soul.

As human beings and children of God, our deepest need is for love to be loved, to love. Our souls thirst for love, even more than our bodies thirst for water. Jesus asks her for water, yet the Samaritan woman is the one who ends up asking him for "living water." She begins to see her need as she comes into contact with and experiences the divine person of Jesus, the very source of the living water, of new life - as she experiences the waters of His divine grace and life. And then this woman begins to taste, to drink in the gift of faith that is being offered to her by the one who thirsts not for water, but for her soul.

The story continues with another request from Jesus to the woman- “go and call your husband.” This seems to be quite a jump; yet, in the way Jesus was leading her,” it was the perfect next question. Once Jesus had made a personal contact with her, his divine presence opened up her desire for the love of God. However, Jesus saw the big obstacle in her life which was keeping her from happiness, keeping her from intimacy with God and His love—that obstacle was her sin and the consequences of her sin. This woman was living in adultery as a result of being married before five times.

Through grace, Jesus gently brings her to acknowledge truthfully her sin, yet it was not a condemning way, but very gently in order to heal her soul and quench its thirst for holiness. No doubt, she knew what sin was and she certainly knew the consequences of the sin, for she had been deeply wounded by the failed marriages. And her current situation surely couldn’t be called love, by living together with a man who was not her husband, she was basically being used-true love only comes from a life-long commitment of love within the sacred bond of marriage. And so, she was full of guilt and was so ashamed, that she did not want to even show herself in public. She came to the well at midday because she had really lost all self-respect, all hope and she had lost her trust in love.

Jesus however loved her, and by experiencing His love the woman realized that she was the one who was really thirsty. She was thirsting for Jesus. So she went to confession, we don’t know all of what she confessed to Jesus, but she told the people- “He told me everything I have done.” Jesus told her the truth, and the truth set her free. He forgave her of her sins and healed the shame she felt, he flooded her soul with the waters of his grace, which cleansed her of her guilt. The joy of repentance and forgiveness was so strong, that she went and told everyone in her village about Jesus, her new love, true love. With her burden lifted and her hope renewed, they believed her and so she evangelized them to the forgiveness of Christ and to His love for which they too were thirsting.

Jesus brought to this woman the great gift of faith. He heals her by forgiving her sins and placing His love in her heart. And then He renews her hope by showing her what or better yet, Whom to place her hope in. Today we realize that we are in the same position as the woman at the well. We are burdened by the struggles, trials of life; this life is so full of struggles and we are tired. In lent we see ever more clearly the degree of our defects and our sins in this life and we don’t seem to be making any real progress; we may even want to imitate the woman at the well and just hide. We like the woman are discouraged and have begun to lose hope, because we have so often and in so many ways placed our hope in the wrong things, instead of in Jesus alone. In Jesus alone is our hope; trust in God is everything.

Today at this Holy Mass Jesus comes to us as well and he tells us that He thirsts. And then he points us, as He pointed the woman at the well, to the source of living water and how we can come in contact with it. And how we come in contact with the Living Waters of God’s love, is adoration of God. Adoration of God is where faith and hope opens itself to love. Jesus is God on earth and His is the only source of living water. We only lose hope and become discouraged when we don’t look at Jesus, when we don’t adore Jesus and place our trust in Him.

Another name for a failure to adore and trust in Jesus is sin. Sin is when we adore ourselves—we trust in our selves, by putting our will before the will of God; we put our truth and our reality before THE TRUTH and before the way things really are, before the reality that God has created. Yes we get our own way, but create our own hell in the process, we begin to die of thirst and don’t even realize it.

But if we are to truly adore Jesus in Spirit and in truth, we must trustingly give ourselves completely to Him and experience Him through faith. To do so, we begin by first opening our hearts to His grace by confessing our sins as did the woman; when we experience His forgiveness and mercy, Jesus for His part pours into our hearts the grace of his love and the grace of a deeper conversion to Him.

We must drink deeply from the only well that can quench our thirst and that well is the heart of Christ. Drinking from any other well will leave us dying of thirst. And the Heart of Christ is the Holy Eucharist; however we can only experience Christ in the Holy Eucharist if we have faith that He is really and truly there, if we believe that the Holy Eucharist is Christ and so is God. And if we believe it then our actions must correspond with what we believe. And so we must not only receive Jesus once and while but often-weekly, even daily, with a pure heart cleansed by frequent confession; but we must not only receive Him, we must also most especially adore Him both within Mass and outside of the Mass at Holy Hours. Only when we adore God in Spirit and in truth by believing the Eucharist is really Jesus, our lives cleansed by His forgiveness in confession, and entrusting ourselves totally to Him by offering ourselves and all our love to Him at Holy Mass, only then will we begin to experience and quench our thirst for God’s infinite love, for God Himself—Jesus our Lord. Oh Blood and Water which gusted forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of love and mercy for me, I trust in Thee. Mother most merciful, pray for us.