4th Week of Lent 2024 - Tuesday - Jesus the Water of Life

Yesterday, I mentioned how the 4th Sunday of Lent was a sort of dividing line in the Lenten season. During the first half of Lent, the scripture readings focus on penance, repentance, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving which help us to bring our passions under control. 

This second half of Lenten assumes that we still continue to practice Lenten penances, of course, but the scripture readings and mass orations speak a lot more about grace, life, healing, and purification. 

In scripture and tradition, these spiritual realities are symbolized often by water. We hear of water in both of our readings today: water flowing out of the temple, water with healing properties at the pool of Bethesda.

Water is essential for physical life; nothing can live without it. In many biblical stories, water is a source of life and growth. Just as water nourishes, cleanses, and sustains physical life, grace, healing, and spiritual life are the divine nourishment and sustenance for the soul. This parallel makes water a natural symbol for the life-giving grace of God. Water quenches the thirst of our bodies--God quenches the thirst of our soul--we were made for him.

Water is a means of cleansing. We wash our cars, we wash our houses, we wash our bodies, with water. Water washes away dirt, impurity, and contagions. So too, it is used sacramentally, to symbolize the washing away of sin in the baptism, and we even use blessed water to purify objects and places exposed to the contagion of evil. 

That water is needed by all people, in all places, and all times, reminds us of how God is needed by all people, in all places, and at all times. 

Water has the power to change landscapes, erode rock, nourish dry land, and create channels of new life. Just as water can lead to dramatic changes in the physical world, God’s grace leads to significant changes in our spiritual lives and personal circumstances.

Water flows, moves, and follows a path. This dynamic quality of water makes it a symbol for the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life. Just as a river follows its path, so does the Spirit guide us to the sea of God’s infinite goodness. 

Water flows from the Temple in the first reading today, foreshadowing how the water will flow from the side of Christ at his crucifixion and how the waters of baptism flow from the Church to all corners of the world, but recall that it is not water in itself that has the power to save us. Water, in fact, is shown to be insufficient in the Gospel today; it is Jesus who heals, it is Jesus who saves: A reminder that the saving waters of baptism are only capable of bringing new spiritual life, because of Christ. He is the living water--whoever comes to him shall never thirst, He is the one that causes a deep well of grace within our souls to spring up to eternal life. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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As the Solemnity of Easter approaches, dear brethren, let our prayer to the Lord be all the more insistent:

That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and those to be fully initiated in the coming Paschal Solemnity

For Peace throughout the nations of the world most threatened by hatred, division, and violence, for the protection of the unborn and the safety of the men and women in our armed forces.  

That all families will commit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.  

For the physical, emotional, and spiritual healing of all people, especially the spiritually blind and hard of heart.  

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for…  

Have mercy, O Lord, on the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in the divine mystery may never be left without your assistance. Through Christ our Lord.

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.

Easter Octave 2021 - Tuesday - He gave them the water of wisdom to drink

During Easter Week, the Church continues to hold aloft in our prayers the newly initiated—those who became one with the Lord through the Easter Sacraments, and one with us in the communion of grace. In the early church, it was customary for the newly initiated to attend daily mass throughout the Easter Octave and continue to don their white baptismal garments in witness to the new life they received in Christ. Many of the scripture readings and liturgical prayers are partly directed to them.

Consider the entrance antiphon for this Easter Tuesday Mass: “He gave them the water of wisdom to drink: it will be made strong in them and will not be moved; it will raise them up for ever, alleluia.” On several occasions Jesus stated that he was the fountain of living water for all who believed in Him and He invited souls to draw near this spring. “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in Me…within him shall flow rivers of living water.” The newly initiated are invited today to consider how, in the Sacraments, they now have access to that living water, the living fountain now wells up within them, as it does all Christians in a state of grace.

St. John Chrysostom teaches: “When the grace of the Holy Spirit enters a soul and is established there, it gushes forth more powerfully than any other spring; it neither ceases, dries up, nor is exhausted. And the Savior, to signify this inexhaustible gift of grace, calls it a spring and a torrent.” The water of grace propels a soul into God and brings that sweet intimacy and union desired by all men.

And yet for that fountain to remain active and forceful, the soul must apply itself to daily prayer, mortification, and good works. It must dispose itself and live out the wisdom of God. Again as Sirach says, “he gave them the water of wisdom to drink”. In order for wisdom to become strong, we must order our lives according to the wisdom of God. God’s priorities must become our priorities; what God loves, we must love, and despising whatever keeps us from this.

Notice in the Gospel today how Mary Magdalene’s tears are changed from sorrow to joy as she begins to understand that Jesus Christ is truly alive. So too with us, as we grow in wisdom and faith, as we allow the grace of the sacraments to grow within us, sorrow over earthly realities is transformed into joy over heavenly ones.

This Easter Season, may the grace of the sacraments continue to be unleashed in our lives: the wisdom that comes from turning away from the world and turning to the Risen Christ in baptism, the strength and fortitude for resisting temptation and spreading the Gospel that comes from confirmation, and the new life that comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

Filled with Paschal joy, let us turn earnestly to God, to graciously hear our prayers and supplications.

For the shepherds of our souls, that they may have the strength to govern wisely the flock entrusted to them by the Good Shepherd.

For the whole world, that it may truly know the peace of the Risen Christ. 

For our own community, that it may bear witness with great confidence to the Resurrection of Christ, and that the newly initiated hold fast to the faith they have received. 

For our brothers and sisters who suffer, that their sorrow may be turned to gladness through the Christian faith.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the desires of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our lord.

4th Week of Lent 2021 - Tuesday - "A stream whose runlets gladden the city of God"

 Of the seven miracles in the Gospel of John, three have to do with water. Jesus changes water into wine at Cana, Jesus heals the crippled man at the water of Bethesda, and Jesus walks on the water of the Sea of Galilee. 

Water is a prominent motif in the Gospel of John. Just like in Genesis 1, in which we hear of the waters of creation, in John 1, we hear of the Baptist baptizing with the waters of repentance. Water, in the very first lines of this Gospel, marks a new beginning of a life sorrowful for sin.

In Chapter 2, Water is changed by Jesus, at the wedding of Cana, to become wine that gladdens the hearts of the wedding guests. And in Chapter 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that his followers must be born again of water and the spirit.

In Chapter 4, Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman. He says, “everyone who drinks the water of this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

In Chapter 5, there is the water of the pool of bethesda. But this water seems to be ineffective at healing: true healing comes from Jesus. And in Chapter 6, Jesus walks on the water, showing his absolute authority over all the waters of creation.

An abundance of water pours forth from the Temple, in Ezekiel’s vision today, and our Psalm speaks of the “stream” of water “whose runlets gladden the city of God”. These foreshadow, along with all of those Gospel images, the waters of baptism which gladden the Church. 

In less than three weeks, thousands of catechumens around the world will be baptized in water at the Easter Vigil. And a billion Catholics will renew their baptismal promises and be sprinkled with fresh Easter water. 

The more seriously we take Lenten penance the more gladness we will experience on Easter Sunday. For Lent helps us to recognize and repent of the ways we have allowed that spring of living water within us to perhaps become clogged or obstructed through earthly attachments to sin. Rather, Lent calls us back to those life-giving, soul-saving, cleansing, freeing, healing water of God’s divine life for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. 

That those in need may find assistance in the charity of faithful Christians and that peace and security may be firmly established in all places.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.

4th Week of Lent 2018 - Tuesday - Water, Water, Everywhere

Of the seven miracles in the Gospel of John, three have to do with water. Jesus changes water into wine at Cana, Jesus heals the crippled man at the water of Siloam, and Jesus walks on the water of the Sea of Galilee.

Water is a prominent motif in the Gospel of John. Just like in Genesis 1, in which we hear of the waters of creation, in John 1, we hear of the Baptist baptizing with the waters of repentance. Water, in the very first lines of this Gospel, marks a new beginning of a life sorrowful for sin.

In Chapter 2, Water is changed by Jesus, at the wedding of Cana, to become wine that gladdens the hearts of the wedding guests. And in Chapter 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that his followers must be born again of water and the spirit.

In Chapter 4, Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman. He says, “everyone who drinks the water of this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

In Chapter 5, there is the water of the pool of siloam. But this water seems to be ineffective at healing: true healing comes from Jesus. And in Chapter 6, Jesus walks on the water, showing his absolute authority over all the waters of creation.

Just as an abundance of water pours forth from the Temple, in Ezekiel’s vision today, and just as our Psalm speaks of the “stream” of water “whose runlets gladden the city of God”, John describes the  blood and water flowing from the side of Christ. This is the water of baptism, this is the water of Christ which continually gladdens the hearts of those in union with Him. Upon glimpsing the resurrected Christ on the sea shore, Peter jumps from his old fishing boat, right into the sea, to joyfully approach the Lord.

In less than three weeks, hundreds of thousands of catechumens around the world will be baptized in water at the Easter. And a billion Catholics will renew their baptismal promises and be sprinkled with fresh baptismal water.

When we encounter the Lord in the Sacraments, in prayer, and in our works of mercy, we partake of the life-giving, soul-saving, cleansing, freeing, healing water of His own divine life.

May our Lenten observances help us to truly yearn for these waters, that we may partake deeply of them, and to be nourished and transformed by them, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity.

That those in need may find assistance in the charity of faithful Christians and that peace and security may be firmly established in all places.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.

Homily: Tuesday - 4th Week of Lent 2017 - Streams of life-giving water

Yesterday, I mentioned how the 4th Sunday of Lent was a sort of dividing line in the Lenten season. During the first half of Lent, the scripture readings focus on penance, repentance, the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving which help us to bring our passions under control. This second half of Lenten assumes that we still continue to practice Lenten penances, of course, but the scripture readings and mass orations speak a lot more about the grace, the life, the healing, which comes from following Jesus. And we are invited to follow Jesus all the way to the cross.

Today, God’s power, his presence, his life, is symbolized in our first reading, by the water flowing from the Temple. The water that flows from God’s Temple, brings an abundance of life: the multiplication of living creatures, abundance of fish, fruit trees, unfading leaves, plants with healing properties.

This river of living water, would have been a stark comparison to the sea to the east of the Jerusalem Temple, the saltiest body of water on earth, the Dead Sea. It's called the Dead Sea for a good reason: nothing can live in it because the water is far too salty to support life. Ezekiel tells us that the river of living water was able to transform even the Dead Sea, to make its waters fresh.

Such is the result of God’s living water upon the land, but even greater is the power of God’s life in the human soul! He brings to life the deadened, salty, unfruitful parts of the human soul. Great sinners have been transformed into great saints.

This isn’t the first time this Lent we’ve heard of miraculous, living waters. On the 3rd Sunday of Lent, Jesus promised to give living water to the woman at the well—to those who believe in him. And in the Gospel today, a sick man lay near a whole reported to have healing properties, but he is healed, not by the pool, but by the word of Jesus.

The penances of this season, and particularly the Sacrament of Confession, strengthen our faith and dispose our souls to receive the living water of Jesus Christ. Perhaps this means that the Lord wishes to help us lay aside an old habit, an addiction, a compulsion, or perhaps he wishes to give us "a fresh, spiritual way of thinking", a new fruit he wishes to cultivate in us, a healing of a hurt, a resentment, a trauma, the effect of past mortal sins which have weakened our will and clouded our intellect.

May our Lenten penances help us to receive the living water Jesus wishes to cause to well up within us, the waters which come from his heart, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving may bring about conversion and renewal within the Church.

For all those preparing to enter into Christ through the saving waters of Baptism and those preparing for full initiation this Easter, may these final Lenten weeks bring about purification from sin and enlightenment in the ways of holiness.

For those who have fallen away from the Church, who have become separated through error and sin,
for those who reject the teachings of Christ, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or illness: may they experience the healing graces of Christ.

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.