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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Third Sunday of Lent – I Thirst - The Samaritan Woman at the Well



Third Sunday of Lent
Christ Meets the Samaritan Women
John 4:5-42

March 23, 2014 
March 19, 2017
March 12, 2023

Give me a drink.” (John 4:7)

As we continue our journey through the desert, this third Sunday of Lent we hear the familiar story of Jesus and the Samaritan Women. Here Jesus stops to quench His thirst. Jesus thirsts? Yes, but not only to satisfy a human need, Jesus thirsts, He longs and desires, for each one of our souls.

Come and see a man who told me everything I have done.” (John 4:29)

At the well, Jesus met a woman, so laden with sin that she was willing to make her chore of collecting water more laborious by coming to the well at noon, in the heat of the afternoon to avoid being seen. This woman could be any one of us, we all have “secret” sin we “hide,” but there is One to whom our sin cannot be hidden. This is good news, for it is only through Him, and His Grace that we will truly be free from the shackles that weigh us down.


In today’s Gospel we are reminded that everyone is a chosen person to God and that He first seeks each one of us, no matter where we are on our journey as He asks “Give me a drink,” He thirsts for our souls.

Pope Benedict XVI says that this request “expresses the passion of God for every man and woman and wishes to awaken in our hearts the desire for a gift of a spring of water within welling up to eternal life.” In the Catechism of the Catholic Church the request is described in paragraph 2560 as, “It is He who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; His asking arises from the depths of God’s desire [love] for us…God thirsts that we may thirst for Him.”

After the Samaritan women spoke with Jesus at the well, she “left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to see him.” (John 4:28-29) How will I respond when I meet Jesus at “my well?” Do I thirst for God above all?




___

Art
Living Water – Simon Dewey
Christ and the Woman of Samaria - Vinzenz Fischer

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