EXODUS 17: 3-7PSALM 94: 1-2, 6-9ROMANS 5: 1-2, 5-8
JOHN 4: 5-42
What is the extent of your faith experience of God’s loving presence in your life?
Do you find that being a Christian, being a Catholic, gives you meaning and is life giving or do you find it an intrusion in your lifestyle? Do you always seek time for prayer and long for the Mass or do you find it difficult to pray and see the Mass as just an obligation to fulfill?
For some people, their faith in God is so important that there is always a desire to seek to grow in their relationship with God. For some, it can be meaningless that they give a limited or minimum time to that relationship and they are always finding excuses to let go of their Catholic beliefs and practices.
In today’s Gospel, we see the growing of faith in the Samaritan woman in her encounter with Jesus. She is at first taken aback by Jesus, a Jew coming to speak to her, a Samaritan, for Samaritans and Jews hated each other. She then came to think that Jesus must be a prophet. Later she wondered if he was the Messiah. Eventually with the people, she realized that he was indeed the Saviour of the world.
Contrast this with the people in the first reading. Here was a people were freed from slavery by God. And God had given them so much to survive in their desert journey. But now they are grumbling. They had forgotten what God had done for them. Many still do today. They do so because they do not know and do not trust God.
Grumble about having to go to Mass or why it is so long, or that it is boring.
In contrast, this is what St Paul wrote in today’s second reading: “That through Jesus, God has poured out his love upon us to save us from our sins even though we did nothing to deserve it.” Nothing can be compared with God’s great love for us.
Sometimes we may not appreciate the promise and gift that Jesus offers us because, like the Samaritan woman, we do not understand. In the Gospel Jesus tells the Samaritan woman and us: ‘If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying this to you.’ Personally, I know that there is still so much that I still have to understand.
Lent is a time when we are invited to become like the Samaritan woman and to listen, to understand, to know and so let the living Word of God live in us. There is something that Jesus is offering us in this life that will live forever.
All the worldly things that we may like, will pass away. Ask the Olympic stars and the movie stars of the past. Who remembers them today and would like to meet them? They cannot re-live their past.
On the other hand what Jesus offers us, no one can take away. It gives meaning to life and life itself. It gives us eternal life
Jesus is saying to us, “Give me a drink.” He is calling to open our hearts to him that we may then be able to see his heart of love which is life giving, to encounter him like the Samaritan woman. It is then that our faith experience will be transformed and we will desire to grow ever closer to God.
Let us reflect then: ‘What then has your last encounter with Jesus been like? What did Jesus say to you?’
Merredin Catholic Parish 