March 12, 2023 (Third Sunday in Lent)

by Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, O.P.

[This text is an automatically generated transcript.]

Have you had enough rain? You might be a little waterlogged. But the California Earth still needs more. The ground waters just not all at once. Admit it, we take water for granted a mere turn of the spigot. But it for Israel during the Exodus water was life and they had none. When one’s mouth is parched and the mind delirious, there is nothing more important. Water is life. Is it any wonder that the Israelites threaten Moses his very life? What shall I do? With this people? They are ready to stone me merubah lay tested God is the Lord among us or not? Hello, God, are you there? Are you real? Are we real to you? If you ever been there have you thirsted for something or someone so much that you felt barely alive? Haven’t you haven’t I asked where are you God?

No, I was tempted to continue in this vein and paint a picture of the thirsty Samaritan woman who had come to the well when no one else was there. We do not realize that in those days there was women’s time and it did not intersect with men’s. There was women’s places and men’s places. And they did not talk publicly to each other. And there were some women who simply were pushed aside. But then I asked who was the really truly thirsty one in today’s Gospel? I mean, she came to the wells. He knew there was water, but she didn’t know her deeper thirst.

Who is the thirsty one? It’s Jesus himself. He wanted water. He broke the taboo. He asked the Samaritan a woman, a woman with a history Jesus was leaving Judaism. He was withdrawing from escalating attacks. He took the shortest route back to Galilee. He was hungry and thirsty enough to cross social boundaries separating men from women, Jews from Samaritans. He was thirsty enough to become a social scandal. One wonders was he thirsty for something else? Have you ever thirsted for an open caring heart? Have you ever hungered for kindness and a conversation? Of belonging?

And so, conversation began a conversation that offers hope for transformation. Today, Revelation. If you knew the gift of God, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The water I shall give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. And what Jesus is doing is beginning with something so mundane is thirst and it takes a deeper into faith and religion. See I see you are sir I see you are a prophet. I know that the Messiah is coming who is called the Christ. When he comes he will proclaim all things to us. And Jesus tells her what he has yet to say to anyone else. I am he the ones speaking with you so a little weak in English and Greek it simply says a go I me and one would have heard the divine name in that moment. I am Who is the thirsty one.

Love yearns to show itself. God and Jesus is the thirsty one. Not out of need, but out of the desire to share to connect. Love loves to love. God makes the first move. Jesus began a conversation that solely revealed who he was. He opens his heart to heal a hurting heart. We play it safe we hide our hearts and often our stories. Shouldn’t we initiate conversations with others and connect persons only become persons through persons reach out encounter what have you to lose and how much more you have to gain. Sadly, we often do the same with God we hide as if that were possible. We might imagine divine disapproval. We are most likely projecting on him our hurt and our anger. Jesus didn’t wash his disciples feet because he was angry. He didn’t mount the cross because he was vengeful. Suffering doesn’t wash away sins. Only that connect in Love heals. And Jesus would pour himself into us, not merely out for us.

So don’t show shy away from conversing with Jesus. The woman didn’t. God thirst for you and his thirst became visible in Jesus. He thirst not out of need as I said, but out of love for love loves to love. The challenge remains to listen with open hearts and not preconceived ideas and agendas it’s encounter. The spiritual life is about reliving encountering the Jesus story inside our story. Don’t keep the conversation superficial, superficial. Jesus conversation with the woman began on the surface, but he took it deeper. He reveals Himself. Can you open your life in candor, even as the woman did? Ponder the Gospels. Let the story and your story touch. And in that reflection Jesus begins to touch our hearts. When you do two stories begin to become a new story of Jesus in you.

This American woman is a model for us this Lent. She faced her thirst with radical honesty. Can you be as candid as she was? She talked with Jesus. Can you be so bold as to read Jesus’s words as if they were meant for you? She accepted the forgiveness and peace Jesus gave say yes to Jesus love and forgiveness. She became an apostle to her village. Share your faith in joy but This all begins in knowing our thirst and seeking to have it slaked.