3rd Sunday of Lent 2026 - Scrutinies and the Samaritan Woman

We celebrated today, with our Catechumens, the first of the three Scrutinies. The three scrutinies are celebrated on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent with those who are preparing to enter the Church at Easter.  The three scrutinies are solemn rituals in which we pray to help to purify, enlighten and strengthen the catechumens as they prepare for the Easter Sacraments.

The word "scrutinize" means to examine in minute detail, and in the scrutinies, the Church prays that every-last minute detail of the lives of the Catechumens may be converted to Christ. The ritual book for the scrutitines says that their purpose is to "heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect" and "to give them strength in Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life".  And that’s something each of us need to seek, every day: to turn to the Lord to heal anything that is defective or sinful in our hearts.

Catechism says, “In order to reach perfection, the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ’s gift, so that . . . doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor.” We are to utilize all of the strength at our disposal--the strength of our intellect and will, the gifts of the spirit—to root out sin so that we may live more fully for God.

We do this before Sacramental Confession of course. We thoroughly scrutinize our moral decisions since our last confession. But it’s a very good idea to get in the habit of doing this every day; before bed, make an examination of your day—your choices and decisions and conversations and interactions—scrutinize your day in the light of Christ. That daily scrutiny is a powerful spiritual help for growth in holiness.

“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” promises Jesus. We seek to purify ourselves of sin, so that we may see God in this life and in the next. Sin obscures spiritual vision—it clouds the intellect. We will hear more about the curing of spiritual blindness next week—in the gospel of the healing of the blind man at the pool of siloam. Yet, this Sunday’s Gospel also had to do with spiritual vision in a sense, as the Samaritan woman came to spiritually see Jesus for who he really is—the one who can quench our thirst for living waters.

This is really a powerful Gospel. There are a couple important details right at the beginning of the story: “Jesus came to a town of Samaria.” Jesus enters this place, where no pious Jew would go. . Samaria was filled with half-breeds—Jews who had intermarried with the Assyrians invaders of centuries past.

First, insight: Jesus doesn’t go around the unclean land or the unclean person. Jesus loves the unclean, the marginalized, the outsider. In the Second Reading, we are reminded by St. Paul that Jesus loves the sinner so much, he lays down his life for them.

Secondly: this woman, goes to the well, at the hottest part of the day, by herself. She is likely ostracized by her own people. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that she had five husbands and was living with a man to whom she was not married. She is surrounded with stigma, she’s living in sin. And it is precisely with her, that jesus converses and offers the gift of life-giving waters.

The Samaritan woman represents every one of us.  She is wounded, complicated, burdened by her past, and yet still sought out by Christ. Jesus waits for her at the well. And Jesus waits for us too. He is not afraid of the mess of her life, and He is not afraid of the mess in ours. He sees everything. He sees every sin, every compromise, every disappointment, every attempt we have made to find fulfillment apart from God—and still He speaks to us. Still He desires to give us living water.

This too makes the Samaritan woman’s faith is so striking—“Sir, give me this water”. She doesn’t quite yet understand who Jesus is completely. She doesn’t have a master’s degree in theology. But she recognizes that Jesus can do for her what no one else can. Her life may not be completely in order—but she gets this right. Recognizing Jesus as Savior, was life changing.

And then the next striking thing about this story: this encounter was so meaningful that she immediately becomes a missionary. This woman who had been avoiding others now runs to them. Once she encounters Christ, she can no longer keep Him to herself.

Here is a sign of authentic conversion. A real encounter with Jesus never remains private. It bears fruit. It changes how we speak, how we act, how we love, how we see others. When we ourselves have been healed, we are moved by love to desire that healing for others.

We know the suffering that comes from living apart from God, and so we desire to help others know Him. We know the emptiness the world has to offer, and so we desire to help others experience the fullness that comes from Him.

We do not want the people around us to remain thirsty, burdened, wounded, confused, or far from God. We want them to know the One we have come to know. We want them to encounter the mercy that has begun to heal us. That is what we see in the Samaritan woman. Once she begins to recognize who Jesus is, she leaves behind her water jar and goes her family and fellow townsfolk. She becomes, almost immediately, a witness. She does not yet understand everything about Jesus. Her faith is still new, still developing. But even so, she has found something—or rather Someone—too important to keep to herself.

And that is often how conversion works. A person who has really encountered Christ may not yet be able to explain every doctrine or answer every theological question, but we know this: I was thirsty, and He met me. I was burdened, and He spoke to me. I was wandering, and He began to lead me. I was hurting, and he comforted me. That’s evangelization.

Evangelization is not only the task of apologists, theologians, clergy, and catechists. Certainly, we have an important role in the Church. But at its heart, Christian witness is simple. I was wounded and empty, and he healed me. It is one beggar showing another where to find bread; one thirsty soul showing another where to find water.

This Lent, the Lord invites us to scrutinize our lives—to lay them bare that we may drink every-more-deeply of the life-giving waters, then sends us out to make that invitation to others—for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

3rd Sunday of Lent 2023 - Thirst for the living water of Christ

 

As we venture deeper into the desert of Lent this weekend, we hear a lot about water and thirst—the thirst of the Israelites in the desert… Jesus himself asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water, but then a discussion ensues about the woman’s thirst for something for vital than water—a thirst for God.

Thirst certainly drove her to the well that day. . She must have been desperate for water to go to the well at high noon at the height of the piercing sun. Why didn’t she go earlier in the day? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she had married five times and was living with a sixth man who was not her husband. Perhaps she avoided going to the well at the cooler times of the early morning or late afternoon, when the rest of the village was there because she sought to avoid the criticism of her the other women because of her complicated past and present. 

We can detect already a thirst for more than water—we don't know what happened to her first 5 husbands, or why she was living with a man who was not her husband, but she no doubt displayed a thirst for authentic lasting companionship. That she ventured  to the well alone, displayed a thirst for community from which she had become alienated either due to her own poor choices or factors beyond her control. 

But, then she encountered Jesus who fulfilled all these thirsts and more. At the most brutal hour of the day, perhaps the most brutal moment in her life, she encountered the Lord.. And breaking with the social conventions—two social conventions, in fact, Jews didn’t speak to Samaritans and men didn’t speak to women alone in public places — the Lord began to speak to her about the spiritual life: of God’s grace, symbolized by the “living water” he describes, and our desire or “thirst” for that water.

This encounter with the Lord Jesus was life changing. Like the fishermen-apostles who leave their fishing nets behind to follow the Lord, their life changed by Jesus’ invitation, St. John tells us that the Samaritan women left her water jar behind and went into the town to tell people about Jesus. Following Jesus more closely always means leaving something behind. The Season of Lent—the quiet of the season of Lent, the prayerful reflectiveness of this holy season helps us to identify the things we need to leave behind in order to follow Jesus more closely.

Perhaps we need to leave behind a habit of quick cutting remarks, or wasting hours on social media or video games or perverted internet content; perhaps we need to leave behind the habit of looking for reasons to criticize or dismiss the people you don’t like. But there are things all of us are invited to leave behind in order to drink more deeply of the living water of Jesus Christ.

And in leaving those artificial substitutes—those inhumane behaviors, we discover that which is truly life giving in Christ—we rediscover our humanity in Christ.

At his Angelus audience a few years ago, Pope Francis pondered what it meant that the Samaritan woman left her water jug there at the well, “The result of that encounter at the well was that the woman was transformed. She left her water jug with which he had come to get water and ran into the city to tell others of her extraordinary experience. … She had gone to take water from the well but had found another water, the living water of mercy that flows to eternal life. She found the water for which she had always been searching. She ran to the village that was judging, condemning and rejecting her and announced that she had found the Messiah who had changed her life. … In this Gospel, we, too, find the stimulus to ‘leave our own jug,’ a symbol of everything that seems important to us but that loses its value before the ‘love of God.’ All of us have one or more than one of these water jugs. I ask you and ask myself, ‘What is my interior jug, which weighs you down, which distances you from God?’ Let us leave it and listen with our heart to the voice of Jesus that offers us another water, one that brings us closer to the Lord.”

This Gospel also challenges us to consider who we have ostracized like the Samaritan women was ostracized by her fellow villagers. Who have we turned off the water faucet of charity, patience, kindness, and courtesy towards? Who have we written off as irredeemable? That is the judgmentalism that is not our way—when we write people off and withhold charity towards them because they don’t conform to either our preconceptions or even to the Gospel. The people who don’t conform with the Gospel are precisely the people to whom the Lord sends us. We are to approach those lonely souls sitting at the well alone with kindness.

The great Father Faber says “Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning; and these three have never converted anyone, unless they were accompanied by kindness.” As you become kinder yourself by practicing kindness, so the people you are kind to, if they were kind before, learn to be kinder, or if they were not kind before, learn how to be kind. To engage in kindness is to take a drink of the living water which produces a wonderful effect in us. The wonderful effect of a kind deed makes you wonder why you do not do more kind things. 

Lent helps us to identify those ways in which we withhold kindness, and then impels us into the world to perform acts of kindness and love. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not rude, it is not pompous.

In the last book of the Bible, in which Jesus speaks to us from within the heavenly Jerusalem, he reiterates what he said to the Samaritan woman. He states: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” He is the Alpha offering each of us a new beginning. And He is the Omega towards which we are to direct all of our actions, our whole lives.

There are so many people in this world dying of spiritual thirst. They go from one fad to the next, one novelty to the next, one addiction to the next, one sin to the next, but the world offers nothing but sand. The world cannot quench the thirst for God. And these people—the thirsty--are in this neighborhood, they are sitting at those empty wells alone, thinking all they need is to find the right thing and then they’ll be happy. But happiness and fullness of life are found not in some thing, but in somebody, and the somebody is Jesus Christ.

“Come” the Lord says in the book of Revelation, “Come and drink.”  “The Spirit and the bride (the Church) say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” 

He invites us to drink of the life giving water, then sends us out to make that invitation to others—in words of preaching, in acts of kindness, in prayers and penances, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

3rd Sunday of Lent 2021 - Water in the desert to quench our thirst for God

 Our scripture readings for this third Sunday of Lent may sound somewhat familiar. They were the last readings we heard prior to the lockdown last year due to the coronavirus. 

Leading upon to the third Sunday of Lent last year, we began to see news reports of this mysterious virus from an overseas laboratory beginning to hit our shores. And stories of stores being ransacked for basic necessities, especially toilet paper, as we with our fellow countrymen began to brace ourselves for the unknown. How much of the activity of this past year was governed by healthy caution and safety, or irrational fear, it will be hard to tell for some time. 

But amidst the chaos and confusion, what has remained throughout it all, has been the human thirst for God. Whether in good times or in bad, in poverty or wealth, in sickness or in health, whether you’re a republican, democrat, atheist, Christian, Muslim, or Jew, man thirsts for God. 

We all experience many types of thirst. 

Daily our bodies thirst.  We of course desire actual water to quench parched lips and dry throats.  Our bodies need water; it’s part of our bodily nature.  Without water, our bodies die. In the first reading, the Israelites who had been wandering in the desert begin to fear that they might die of real actual physical thirst. It is clear they didn't quite trust God yet, which is why they are described as grumbling, complaining to Moses about this god who would lead them out into the desert. But their fear, and their thirst, was real. 

One summer I visited the African Island Country of Madagascar with Catholic Relief Services.  I remember visiting villages where regular access to clean drinking water was a real problem, as it is in many third world countries. And one of the tasks of Catholic Relief Services was to help people develop reliable access to clean drinking water. Certainly, one of our duties toward the Lord is to give drink to the thirsty--"for I was thirsty, and you gave me drink"

Beyond physical thirst, we also experience many different types of emotional thirst. A thirst for companionship; after months of isolation, thirst for human touch and social interaction, to see people’s faces and smiles. At points in our lives we thirst for fun and excitement, perhaps adventure; at other times we thirst for a stable job and a sturdy roof over our head. We thirst for knowledge and beauty and goodness and justice. Our human nature thirsts for these very good things.

And then of course, the deepest thirst of all, a thirst that nothing, no earthly relationship or earthly pursuit can quench: the thirst, only God himself can satisfy. This deepest thirst is not for some THING, but for some ONE.  For God.  God IS the living water, of whom St. Augustine said, “my heart is restless until it rests in you, my God.”  

Remember that beautiful Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God, for you I long, for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water”  And Psalm 42, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God.”

Our bodies need H2O and food, our minds need companionship and knowledge, and our souls need God—our souls need intimate, personal contact with Him.

As the Catechism puts it: "Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness" (#45).  God has created the human person to be in Communion with Himself.  We will never find true joy outside of His will.  

Finite things cannot quench the thirst for the infinite living God, and yet, and yet sinful man attempts to quench the thirst for God with so many artificial substitutes. The addict, the drug-addict, the sex or porn-addict, the gambling-addict, the tv-addict or video-game addict, the food or shopping-addicts, seeking God in so many artificial substitutes bring such sadness to themselves and their families. Their addiction cannot satisfy and leaves them hollow. To paraphrase Ken Kesey, every time they take a drink from the bottle, the bottle takes a drink from them. 

When some false God becomes the center of our life—the pursuit of pleasure, power, or the good-life, we are left exhausted and unhappy—because we end up drinking sand—and sand does not quench. The neglect of prayer and right religion leaves us literally dying of spiritual thirst while refusing to acknowledge that God could save us if we but humbly turned to Him. 

In the beatitudes, the Lord promises blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Our deepest hungers and thirsts can be satisfied by God. And not just ultimately in heaven, either. Our spiritual thirst for God begins to be satisfied as we enter into the mystery of God in this earthly life through the sacraments and the life of faith, through prayer and works of charity.

Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.” Jesus wants to give us this living water of His very Life with us, but he will not force us to drink.  

During Lent, we acknowledge those times in which we have been misguided in our search for God, when we have turned to sin, instead of turning to him.  And we do penance—we pray, fast, and give alms, not just for ourselves, but for the conversion of the lost souls out there. Those who cannot bring themselves to humbly admit how much they need God. We undertake penances, praying that their pride, their egos, will be softened, that they may hear the voice of Christ calling them to the waters of everlasting life—the living water of God. 

[Tomorrow ]/[This morning] we celebrate a special ritual, the first of three rituals called the Lenten scrutinies, for those preparing for the easter sacraments. Angela and Bruce will stand before the congregation, acknowledging their thirst for Christ, their desire to drink deeply of the waters of the Christian life and the sacraments.  They are reminders to all of us, to seek to be free from all that keeps us from drinking deeply from the waters Christ gives.

In Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we strip away the non-essentials of our lives, and make our lives into a sort of desert, and yet, it’s in the Lenten desert, that those with faith drink deeply of the living water of God flows abundantly in prayer, fasting, and self-giving.

Again, if you haven’t gone to confession this Lenten season, it is so important to acknowledge those times when we’ve have turned away from the living waters. Without confession, we begin to settle for less, we begin to settle for sand, and are left dying of thirst. 

I offer confessions on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings, on Monday nights, and will offer an evening of confessions for three hours, 5 to 8pm on Wednesday march 24. .

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

3rd Sunday of Lent 2020 - I Thirst

During my semester abroad in Rome, I volunteered every week at a homeless shelter run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity. A few others seminarians and I, along with some American college students would serve breakfast to the homeless men of Rome, and then we’d spend a few hours washing bedsheets from the infirmary. But before we were allowed to begin our work, we instructed to visit the chapel to pray with our Blessed Lord. We were to pray that we would see Him in those we served. Pretty much, no matter where you are in the world, the chapels of the Missionary Sisters of Charity are pretty austere. A tabernacle. No pews, for they stand or kneel on the floor. But in every one of their chapels around the world is a crucifix , with the bloodied christ looking upwards toward heaven, with words written in Italian next to the crucifix. Two words: “Ho sete”, I thirst, words uttered by Our Lord of course on Calvary, as he hung upon the cross. “Ho sete”, I thirst

Certainly he spoke of a physical thirst. After all, the blood loss and exertion from carrying the cross, must have caused unimaginable dehydration and dryness of mouth and throat. And yet, he no doubt spoke of a thirst of soul, a thirst which drove his mission, from Nazareth to the cross to do with will of his Father, a yearning for his Father described the 63rd Psalm: My God, for you I long, for you my soul is thirsting, like a dry weary land without water.”

Mother Theresa wanted her sisters to see those words “Ho Sete”, “I thirst” and meditate upon them every time they entered the chapel, no matter what part of the world in which they were stationed. For Mother wanted the  sisters to see in every person they served, in the poorest of the poor, the thirsting Christ. And to remember, that what they did for the least ones, they did for him. In every cup of water, they quenched his thirst.

But Mother Theresa also wanted her sisters to recall their own thirst, which could only be satisfied by Christ. That thirst quenched by their time in the chapel, in adoration and reception of the Eucharist. They are required to spend an hour in eucharistic adoration every day. But also their thirst for Christ which could only be quenched by their service. In serving the poorest of the poor, they would encounter Him, if their hearts were open.

Each one of us possesses a deep thirst for God—it is our deepest thirst and longing. I don’t think any of us would be here today, during this time of quarantine, if not for that thirst. Please know, however, that the obligation to attend mass has been dispensed of for the next three weeks by the bishops of ohio and our diocesan administrator, and certainly you should not come to mass if you are ill or have symptoms of the flu or corona virus.

And just as it is for the Missionary Sisters of Charity, what we do in here—the quenching of our thirst for the divine—prepares us for what must be done out there—to meet Christ in the poor and suffering.  In a time of plague and global pandemic, Christ must still be fed out there, he must still be visited, he must still be consoled. You might want to check in on the widow next door and make sure she has enough to eat, and to call your loved ones, encourage them to pray.

In the Gospel, Our Lord asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. The Lord certainly shattered some of the social conventions of his day: a Jew…a man…speaking to a Samaritan…a woman…coming in close contact with her, even taking a drink of water from her. Here the Lord shattered a sort of fear which gripped the people of his day, one which still operates today. A fear of the stranger, a fear bred through generations, passed on from parent to child. That sort of fear is not to operate in the Church, and must not keep Christians from charity and service.

The Lord’s conversation with the woman soon turned from his physical thirst, to her thirst for God, a thirst which the Lord promised could be quenched through Him. “Everyone who drinks the water of the well will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” To which the woman responds with faith: “give me this water”

And this is why he came. This is why he died. That the waters of eternal life may well up within us. For not only does the woman thirst, not only do we all thirst for Christ. Christ thirsts for us. God thirsts for us. Listen to the beautiful words of our Eucharistic preface today: “For when he asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink, he had already created the gift of faith within her, and so ardently did he thirst for her faith, that he kindled in her the fire of divine love.”  Jesus thirsts for us to turn to him in faith, and to allow him to kindle in our hearts fire, the fire of divine love.

This week we’ve seen reports of hoards of people irrationally hoarding the basic necessities, including water. There would have been a lot less panic, and fear, and hoarding this week, had the prayer of the Samaritan woman been on the lips and hearts of our fellow citizens: “Lord give me the water of eternal life”. For the fear of death which gives rise to violence and irrational hoarding and materialism and every sin, is cast out by love of Jesus Christ—by the divine fire.

In this time of global distress, may Christians, having the water of life welling up within them, teach the world—to turn to the waters of Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 3rd Sunday of Lent 2017 - The woman at the well

The Gospel of the Samaritan Woman contains many insights which enrich our Lenten journey.
There are a couple important details right at the beginning of the story: “Jesus came to a town of Samaria…Jacob's well was there.” Jesus enters this place, where no pious Jew would go. Samaria was filled with half-breeds—Jews who had intermarried with the Assyrians invaders of centuries past. The Samaritans were no longer considered Jewish, and so they and their land were considered unclean and would be avoided by the pious Jew.

First, insight: Jesus doesn’t go around the unclean land or the unclean person. Jesus loves the unclean, the marginalized, the outsider. In the Second Reading, we are reminded by St. Paul that Jesus loves the sinner so much, he lays down his life for them.

The encounter between Jesus and the woman doesn’t just take place in a random location in Samaria, rather, we hear it takes place on a well.  Last week, Jesus was on top of a mountain, the place where heaven meets earth, divinity meets humanity.

What’s symbolic about a well? If you’ve ever been to a wedding reception, sometimes the repository for the wedding gifts and wedding cards is in the shape of a well. In Scripture, many brides and grooms meet at wells. Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah, all meet at wells.
Jesus, has but one bride, the Church. So the sinful, unclean Samaritan woman is a symbol of us all, invited to be wedded to Christ through his death and resurrection.

We know where this encounter takes place, but when does this encounter take place? St. John tells us: it was around noon. It’s the part of the day when the sun is at its most brilliant and most illuminating…in the course of this story Jesus is certainly going to shed light upon something truly important: his identity and the promises available for those who believe in Him.

So this woman of Samaria comes to draw water, and Jesus said to her “give me a drink”. This is a very strange request. In the society of his time, men and women, especially strangers, would not speak to each other publicly; It would be highly unusually and unconventional for a Jewish man to be so frank and direct with a Samaritan woman.

Notice that Jesus invites her to give Him a drink. St. Augustine said magnificently, this is God thirsting for our faith. Yes, indeed. This is God thirsting for our generosity. God thirsts for our generosity because generosity makes us joyful and God made us to be joyful. Sin and selfishness are always a failure to be generous with God and neighbor and result in joylessness.

The woman responds to Jesus’ invitation, not at all aware of the spiritual significance of the encounter: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"” To which Jesus responds, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink, ' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Jesus IS the gift of God—the Son is given to us by the Father that we may have eternal life. Jesus is saying, if you knew who I was, you’d ask me to give you what no one else on earth can provide: living water. Living water, what a powerful image for desert people—liveliness, hope, vitality, grace. Jesus is saying, I can give you what you most long for, that which humanity lost through sin, reconciliation with God that will bring you eternal life.

The woman shows she still doesn’t quite understand: “You don’t even have a bucket, how can you give living water?” She’s still thinking simply about physical water. So, Jesus takes her where she is, but then leads her deeper. Everyone who drinks from the earthly well will be thirsty again.

The earthly wells are all those earthly places we go to quench our thirst for the divine, but do not satisfy. All the addictions that leave us longing, all the worldly pursuits we chase after because we think they will make us happy. We’re wired for God, we are built for God, but we seek our happiness in all the wrong places, in created things like money, fame, and pleasure. We drink from those wells, and we are still thirsty. As good as these things are, none of them are God, so nothing can satisfy our desire for the infinite.

The woman so focused on the earthly well is all of us who fail to come to Jesus to be satisfied. What is your well? What is the behavior you go back to over and over looking for happiness where true happiness cannot be found? That’s an important Lenten exercise. What is your well? Hear the voice of Jesus this Lent inviting you to be generous with God, that God teach you a new way of drinking living water.

Jesus wants to give us living water that will bring us wholeness, joy, peace, and eternal life. But we must choose between him and the well.

Jesus then poses another interesting request: “go invite your husband and come back.” And the woman answers, “I don’t have a husband”. And Jesus says, “you are right, you don’t have a husband, you’ve had five husbands, and the man you are living with isn’t your husband.”

Why has this woman come at the worst part of day, the hottest part of day to draw water, and why is she alone? The custom at the time was for women to venture together to the village well, it was a time of comradery, and they’d go to the well either in the morning or evening, not at the hottest part of the day because it’s hard work drawing water.

So this woman has gone to the well, alone and at the hottest part of the day because she is probably a woman of ill-repute, someone who is morally suspect even to her neighbors, she’s had five husbands, she may have stolen seduced men away from their lawful wives.

Jesus invites even her, even us, to drink. We are all sinners. Maybe not exactly like the Samaritan woman, but we have all engaged in false relationships, gone back to worldly wells, isolated ourselves from others through poor choices? And what do we hear from Jesus? The invitation to life. The invitation to drink deeply, to have a deep intimate relationship to Christ through prayer isn’t just for the saints, it is for all of us.

The invitation to life involves change, it involves breaking habits, healing relationships, turning away from attitudes and behaviors which are contrary to our faith, putting an end to selfishness. Jesus invites the Samaritan woman to look humbly and honestly at her sins, and to let go of them, that she may know eternal life, and Jesus makes the same invitation to us.

May our Lenten observances help us to hear Jesus calling us to drink deeply of the living water which only comes through Him, through prayer, through repentance of sins, through reception of the sacrament, through generosity with God and selfless charity towards our neighbors, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.