Third Sunday Of Lent

 

    During a parish retreat Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen related an incident that took place when he was ministering as a young priest in New York City. He was called urgently to an apartment where a woman named Kate was dying. It was one of the dirtiest apartments that he had ever seen. He asked her if she would like to make her peace with the Lord. She said she couldn’t because she was the worst woman in New York City. She was a prostitute. Her unemployed, live-in boyfriend was unhappy with her because she didn’t bring in enough money to support his drug habit so he poisoned her. Fr. Sheen immediately replied that she was not the worst woman in New York City, because the worst woman would think she was the best. After telling her some of the parables of Jesus she agreed to go to confession, Fr. Sheen anointed her and immediately she got better. She was healed physically and even more importantly she was healed spiritually. After her recovery she became an apostle to the people among whom she worked, and she brought them to Fr. Sheen. They would come to him and say, “Father, I am the person Kate told you about.” Kate received the mercy of Jesus and became an apostle of Divine Mercy. 

  I imagine the woman that Jesus met at the well thought that she was the worst woman in Samaria. She came to the well at noontime to draw water. Ordinarily women came in the morning to draw water from the well, not in the heat of the day. Why was she there at midday? Perhaps she was ashamed of her reputation? She had been married five times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband. If she came to the well in the morning when the women were there, she would certainly encounter their scorn and contempt.

  Jesus asks her for a drink, and it surprises her. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria.” There was a long-standing hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus answers her by saying, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” This thirst of Jesus is symbolic; it was for her faith that Jesus thirsted. In his conversation with her, Jesus compels the woman to discover and face the truth for herself. The woman is brought face to face with the truth. Jesus reveals her own sinful state and her eyes become opened to the reality of her life. Suddenly and with alarm, Jesus brought her to her senses. She must have stiffened as if a sudden pain had caught her.  She must have grown pale as one who had seen a sudden apparition; and indeed she had, for she had suddenly caught sight of herself. At that moment she was compelled to face herself and the total inadequacy of her life. The thing to notice here is that Jesus did not push her to despair. Instead, the opposite happened. He pointed out to her the way to cure, healing and rightness of life. He tells her of the ‘true Worship’ in which our souls can meet God. What is this worship? It’s when we love God with our whole heart we know in the depths of our soul that we have experienced friendship and intimacy with God.

  This experience of self-revelation comes to all of us at some point in our lives; the suddenrealization that life as we are living it just can’t go on. Perhaps our lives are out of control and we are involved in things we know that are wrong but cannot stop. Addictions, obsessions, abusive behaviors and habitual lying are all indications that something within us is radically wrong. Not only do we find ourselves denying our behavior but justifying it in our own minds.                               

We may be fooling ourselves but we cannot fool God. It has been said that there are two revelations in Christianity: the revelation of God and the revelation of ourselves. No person ever sees themself until they see themself as God sees them; and then they are appalled at the sight. St. Augustine once wrote that, “A man cannot hope to find God unless he first finds himself.” Self-knowledge is never easy. How many of us look in the mirror each day and wish the reflection that we saw was not our own? The first step to self-knowledge is self-acceptance.

When we are willing to accept who we really are, with all our sins and failings, then we are ready to see ourselves as God sees us. Unfortunately, we tend to think that God sees only our sins, because that is how we see ourselves. No. God sees us as his children, his beloved sons and daughters. The Father’s love for us is unconditional. It’s not about what we have done. It’s about who we are.

  Jesus thirsts for us. He wants to awaken the love of the Father in our hearts. “If only you knew the gift of God! You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” What is this living water?  Put simply, it is nothing less than God’s love for us, which is pure gift. This is the thirst that only God can satisfy. Our souls long for peace, for wholeness, for eternity. “As the deer longs for running streams so my soul longs for you, my God.” (Ps.42) When we lose sight of this, or choose to ignore it, then we fill our days with an endless stream of things on the hope of finding the one thing that will quench our thirst and bring us happiness.

    In today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus, the passage tells about the Jews journey through the desert, complaining about their thirst, a figure of human longing for spiritual satisfaction. When God told Moses to strike the rock, and the water would flow, again there is a deeper meaning: namely that water, so essential for life, comes from God. And just as Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel, of God’s gift of running water, the emphasis in the Exodus passage is also upon the gift. Whereas God in the desert and Jesus at the well, offered to satisfy physical thirst, in bringing about salvation through Jesus, God satisfies something deeper, our spiritual thirst – with living water, life-giving water.

The season of Lent is a journey toward self-awareness, and self-understanding, a special opportunity that the Church gives us each year to enable us to drink more deeply of this living water that Jesus offers us. The Church not only encourages us to fast and to pray during this sacred season, to spend more time in prayer, to read the Scriptures and to take advantage of the graces that are already available to us, especially in the sacraments. The Samaritan woman at the well not only comes to see who she really is, but also to recognize who Jesus really is, “the fountain of water springing up to eternal life; the savior of the world.”  

  Through the ministry of Fulton Sheen, Kate also discovered the truth for herself. She was not the worst woman in New York City. For the first time she saw herself as Jesus saw her, as a beloved daughter. As Jesus did not push the Samaritan woman to despair, neither did Fulton Sheen. Instead, he brought Kate to Jesus, to healing and rightness of life. Her eyes were opened, and her health was restored. The Father’s love was awakened in her heart, and she responded by becoming an apostle of Divine love “If you knew the gift of God, Jesus says.” Christ comes to us today to meet us. It is he who first seeks us and asks for a drink. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. How deep is his desire for us! The fountain of life-giving water is here, ready for us, springing up to eternal life. Come and drink!

Photograph by Brother Brian. Today's homily by Father Emmanuel.