Third Sunday of Lent

Jan 08 2025

The Tender Voice of Jesus

Around the corner from my office is a statue by sculptor Ivan Mestrovic of the encounter between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. The Lord is looking straight at the woman. The woman is clinging to a large jar and looking down. It is midday. What did this woman expect when she woke up that day? Another dry and empty day as the pariah of the town? In Mosaic law, it is the husband who divorces the wife, so she has already been cast off five times. And her current live-in has not married her. Yet here is a bone weary male Jewish stranger, asking her for a drink. Asking her for a drink. Apparently from her bucket. No wonder she is looking down. This statue on the Notre Dame campus freezes time right there. But in the Gospel, we hear Jesus tenderly poke and prod and speak to her until she opens up and lifts her head. He holds out to her an abundance of the water of life, greater than she has ever imagined. And she takes it.

She drops her bucket (to which she clings so tightly in the statue) and runs to tell the news about the stranger. When she comes back, she doesn’t bring a bucket; she brings a whole village!

In art, we look at spaces, not just objects. What most impresses me about Mestrovic’s statue is the tenderness in the space between the two characters. Some of us are preachers, some are teachers. Whatever our ministry in life, when we seek to help people come to God, it is that tone of tenderness that crosses divides. More important than words, come into the space with gentleness. Living water will flow.

Consider/Discuss

Jesus also entrusts his thirst to us. We encounter him in order to be filled. Yet he has no bucket but ours. What is our role in fulfilling Jesus’ mission to the thirsty world in which we live?
Read through the Gospel again, this time imagining great tenderness in the voice of Jesus. How do you hear the passage differently?

Living and Praying with the Word

Like the woman at the well and the Israelites in the desert, Lord, sometimes we wonder if you—or anyone—cares. Yet you continue to tenderly poke and prod and speak to us. Help us to raise our eyes and see you looking at us with love. As we continue on through this Lent, bring us to repentance and to glory, but also deepen our tenderness in our mission to bring living water to those who thirst for you.

Jan 08 2025

Scripture Study for

After their deliverance from Egypt, the work of forming Israel into God’s people continues. Although they have seen God’s power to save, they have not experienced God’s ability to provide. Until they come to trust that their God is capable of meeting all of their needs, they will not be able to be faithful to the covenant relationship. The cry for water, revealing doubts that God is “in their midst,” is thus a “test” of God’s trustworthiness. God’s quick provision is intended not only to provide life-giving water, but also to inspire trust in the God with whom they will shortly enter into covenant relationship.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul explains that, whereas sin alienates us from God, faith in Christ brings about peace with God. More than this, Christ makes it possible to share in the divine life, which gives hope of future glory. This hope is firm because the believer already experiences the “love of God,” which can mean God’s love for the believer, the believer’s love of God, or both. In the first case, the Spirit and the life of grace are from God, a gift of love and a firm promise for the future. In the second case, the believer is able to love God through the transforming power of grace.

Today’s Johannine reading dramatizes a central theme found in the Prologue. Just as the Word was in the world but the world did not know or accept him (1:10–11), so at first the woman resists Jesus, “knowing” only that he is a Jew, estranged from Samaritans. But Jesus persists, declaring that if she really knew who he was she would have asked for “living water” from him, a metaphor for divine life and grace (“to those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God” [1:12]). Eventually the woman comes to believe that he might “possibly be the Christ.” As a result of her testimony, others encounter Jesus and come to “know that he is truly the savior of the world.”

Dec 13 2024

Our Thirsty God

There are a number of thirsty people in our readings today: the Israelites out in the desert, grumbling about the lack of water and wondering why they ever left Egypt; the woman of Samaria, who has gone to the well to draw water for herself and her companion at home; and Jesus, traveling through Samaritan territory with his disciples.

The thirst of the Israelites was physical. Once again disheartened, they were grumbling that Moses had taken them out in the desert to die. It must have gotten serious because we are told that Moses himself feared for his life. God’s response is dramatic: “Take your staff, go over to that rock and strike it.” And the water flowed.

The nameless woman is shown to be thirsty on several levels. Physically, yes, but her thirst is on far deeper levels—for companionship (five husbands and now living with yet another person!) and for communion with God. Jesus promises her that people will worship God in Spirit and in truth. Indeed, the Father seeks such people.

Is it possible the one most thirsty is God? The Father thirsts for all of us to draw closer, to live fully the life that only God can give, that life celebrated on Easter, made possible by the dying and rising of Jesus. Those to be baptized enter into divine life at baptism, but all believers continue to be satisfied by the life-giving water that is Jesus.

Consider/Discuss

What are you thirsting for?
Do you approach God as one who can satisfy your deepest thirst?

Responding to the Word

Risen Lord, you came to bring us life-giving water. Such water poured over us at our baptism. We pray for those who will soon enter into this water and become sons and daughters of the Father, co-heirs with you. Strengthen them, enlighten them, guide them, encourage them, in these final days of preparation.

Dec 13 2024

Scripture Study for

The miracle of water from the rock is God’s response to the people’s rebellion in the wilderness. Moses’ authority is under direct attack. Nonetheless, just as God delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt through the leadership of Moses, so now, again through the actions of Moses, God provides for their needs. Moses is instructed to employ the staff he used to perform the signs and wonders that surrounded the liberation from Egypt. When he strikes the rock, life-giving water flows forth. This is but another example of God’s boundless and compassionate love for sinners.

The justification of the Romans is based on the righteousness that originates in God, a righteousness that gives and sustains life, security, and well-being. According to Paul, we have no right to this relationship with God. It has been given to us, won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We did not deserve it. We were sinners, alienated from God, when Christ died for us and gained access for us to the grace that places us in right relationship with God. The prodigious quantity of God’s graciousness is beyond our comprehension. It is poured out like water, life-giving, enriching, and overflowing.

The living water metaphor about which Jesus and the Samaritan woman con verse has a long and rich history in the religious tradition of Israel, where it is seen as a principle of spiritual life. Jesus’ unexplained knowledge of the woman’s marital situation prompts her to call him a prophet and to launch into another discussion about the proper place to worship God. Here too Jesus moves the conversation away from what is merely perceptible to the level of deep spiritual meaning, from a discussion of the place of worship to one that characterizes the manner of worship. The word of salvation comes to the Samaritan village through a woman, it takes root in the hearts of these despised and marginalized people, and it grows into a great harvest.

Dec 13 2024

Seize the Day—Now

Carpe diem was one of the phrases you’d learn if you studied Latin in high school. It means “Seize the day.” For a high school student it seemed to offer a permit to act impulsively. Speaking as someone more than fifty years away from that time, it offers an inducement to act wisely—now.

Moses is told by a voice from a burning bush that the God of his ancestors wanted him to go back down to Egypt, from which he had fled after murdering an Egyptian. All Moses was given at this encounter was an obscure name for God, and a proposed plan to rescue the Israelite slaves and lead them to a new land. Not a very attractive offer for one peacefully tending sheep, but Moses seized the day, hearing the call to act—now.

Jesus calls on his fellow Jews to seize the day by repenting. Life is short. People die tragically without deserving it. Look to your own life, he tells them. God has given you these days, so bear fruit—now.

Paul calls on the Corinthian to seize the day. Not just our actions but even our desires can mislead us. So don’t be complacent, a word that means sedating your spirit by being overly pleased with yourself. Turn to God—now.

Baptism lays a foundation, giving us the Spirit and the virtues of faith, hope, and love. In a month we are going to renew our baptismal promises on Easter, confirming our desire to seize the day, every day, as an opportunity to grow closer to God—now.

Consider/Discuss

Have you “settled in” to being a Catholic? Have you become a “couch Catholic,” not overly exerting yourself in living out of your faith?
This coming week brings us to Lent’s mid-point. Is anything happening on the conversion/turn-to-the-Lord front?

Responding to the Word

Lord, teach us to number our days and realize how quickly life passes, days into weeks into months into years. Rouse our spirits and teach us how to work with your Spirit to make fruitful the gifts you have given to us for the good of others. Move us to act wisely.