1. Our Gospel reading this morning – you have already come to this conclusion – is longer than our average Sunday Gospel. This will be true next Sunday and the following Sunday as well. The Sunday Gospels for the third, fourth and fifth weeks of Lent – in the “A” cycle of readings – focus on the grace of Christian initiation. These Gospels, therefore, have special value to candidates who are moving through the last phases of that process which we call the RCIA – The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. These Gospels also speak volumes to all of us who are moving through another Lenten observance with the hope of celebrating the Easter mysteries with minds and hearts renewed. These Gospels make us intimate participants in three New Testament incidents. In today’s Gospel we are caught up in Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well in Samaria, focusing on her passage and our own passage from sin to grace. Next Sunday we will meet that wonderful character in John’s Gospel described as the man who was born blind, and we will contemplate his own passage and our own passage from darkness to light. Finally, on the week before Holy Week, we will find ourselves with Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, as we contemplate his passage and our own passage from death to life. This morning we should note carefully what our Preface Prayer says about the Samaritan woman. When Jesus asked the woman from Samaria for water to drink, Christ had already prepared for her the gift of faith. In his thirst to receive her faith, he awakened in her heart the fire of God’s love.
2. Jesus lived in a part of the world where water was and still is a scarce commodity. Not only was clean water scarce; much of the water available was too dangerous to drink. It is hard for us to imagine in our culture a scarcity of water. Even though our water bills have quadrupled, our habits have not changed. We keep the tap running while we brush our teeth, we take marathon showers, we run washing machines when only half full. However, we are the exceptions. The majority of the world’s present population share in Jesus’ experience and that of the Samaritan woman who had to come daily to the public pump. Several years ago, our Holy Father entitled his Lenten message – “Water is Sacred: Protect It”. He wrote: “We are deeply worried to see that entire peoples have been reduced to destitution and are suffering hunger and disease because they lack drinking water. Hunger and many diseases are closely linked to drought and water pollution. Immense areas of Africa are experiencing the scourge as well as many other areas across the globe.”
3. Water, of course, figures as a prominent symbol in the Scriptures. The psalmist, describing the just person as one who follows not the counsel of the wicked but delights in the law of the Lord, has this to say: “The just person is like a tree planted near running water”. And in the familiar 23rd Psalm, the poet writes: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. In green pastures he gives me repose. Beside restful waters he leads me. He refreshes my soul.” In our intriguing Gospel narrative this morning, Jesus distinguishes between the water of everyday life, which the woman could understand, and the living water that can become a fountain providing eternal life for the person who drinks it. Jesus leads the Samaritan woman from her understanding of the water of everyday life to the discovery of the living water that is God’s grace – the grace of the Holy Spirit – that provides eternal life. Thus John the Evangelist’s dramatic account of the incident of the Samaritan woman powerfully described for us the work of the Holy Spirit drawing the woman to Jesus, leading her to faith, turning her from sin, opening her ears to the Gospel, turning her into an evangelist, an apostle, someone who could tell others about the Jesus who had conversed with her at the well. It is the Holy Spirit who brings her town folks to faith, first because of her word, but basically and ultimately because of God’s word.
4. As we watch the Samaritan woman wrestling with the grace of faith, we can be strengthened in our faith-struggles as well. I’m referring here not so much to the Creed that we articulate each Sunday at the Eucharist; I’m referring to something deeper and more foundational, the faith that gives rise to the Creed, that is, our faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our faith-obedience to the demands of the Gospel, that faith which we call “the faith of the Church”. Take a good look at the first reading today. It locates God’s Old Testament people in the desert. They were grumbling against Moses and against God; their temptation was to opt for water and slavery back in Egypt rather than for thirst and freedom in the desert. The place of their grumbling was called Massah, that is, the place of the quarrel, and Meribah, the place where the people tested God by asking – Is the Lord our God in our midst or is he not? This is the faith-question, the God-question from the Old Testament. The New Testament asks the same question, but with its focus on Jesus. Is the Lord Jesus the very Son of God in the flesh, is God at work in Christ in our midst or is he not? This became the faith question of the Samaritan woman. What about ourselves? No one of us has ever seen God. No one of us has seen the Lord Jesus in his historical presence. Our question becomes the Holy Spirit question, or as we can also express it, the Church-question: Is the Holy Spirit at work in the Church – making the risen Christ present and active in our midst or is he not? This is the way and only way the God-question can be expressed for the Catholic Christian in the world of today. The Liturgy today is a wonderful opportunity to profess with the Church and with those Samaritans newly converted to the Church – the Body of Christ – “This is truly the Savior of the world”, and God the Father tells us – “Listen to him”.
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