Living Water
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Third Sunday of Lent
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John 4:5-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired
from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of
Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His
disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to
him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman for a drink?” — For Jews
use nothing in common with Samaritans.— Jesus answered and said to her, “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.” The woman
said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where, then, can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father
Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children
and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this
water 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water,
so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered
and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are
right in saying, ‘I have no husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the
one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman
said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped
on this mountain, but you say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her, "Believe me woman; the hour is coming when you will
worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people
worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because
salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when
true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; and indeed the
Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship
him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that
the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell
us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking with you.” At
that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with
a woman, but no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking
with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to
the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he
possibly be the Christ?” They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I
have food to eat which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one
another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to
them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his
work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you,
look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already
receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal live, so that the sower and
reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows
and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others
have done the work and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” Many of the
Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the
woman who testified, “He has told me everything I have done.” When the
Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed
there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and
they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we
have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the
world.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that You are present
in my life. I believe that You are my creator and that you hold me in
existence at every moment. I hope in You because I know that You created me
and want what’s best for me. I know that you want to give me the living water
you promised to the Samaritan woman. I am the one who places obstacles in
your way. My lack of faith, attachments to worldly things, egoism and vanity
all get in the way of receiving your gift. I come to you in prayer today with
a humble and contrite heart. You know my misery and how much I need your
grace. Accept my prayer today as a token of my desire to remove the obstacles
that come between us.
Petition: Lord help me to turn to You, the Wellspring of Eternal Life, to
satisfy my thirst.
1. Making Trips to the Well: The Samaritan woman comes to the
well to draw water as she has so many times before. When her water runs out
and she is thirsty, she must go back to the well again. The water she draws
from the well has the power to satisfy for only a short time. We can go
through life just like this woman, searching for the little things in life
that satisfy our thirst – perhaps pleasure, the latest news, an interesting
job or a friendship. All these things satisfy, but their satisfaction is
limited and we must return to them again and again. To what do you turn to
satisfy your thirst for happiness and fulfillment? Reflect on how that
satisfaction is limited and how you must go back time and time again to
quench your thirst.
2. The Living Water: The Samaritan woman comes to draw
water, but this time there is a Jewish man at the well and he asks her for a
drink. She is taken aback by his request because Jews do not associate with
Samaritans. A Jew would not ask a Samaritan for a drink because, according to
Jewish law, the buckets that the Samaritans used were unclean. In spite of
her initial shock, she is willing to converse with him and is startled when
he offers her living water. It is soon clear that he is speaking about
something much greater than well water. He is speaking about the life of
grace – the life-giving water he has come to give all mankind. He shares this
life of grace with us in abundance – so much so that when we accept his offer
of life-giving grace, we no longer have need for inferior satisfactions.
3. We Must Ask for This Water: Christ tells the woman, “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.” The woman does not
know she is speaking to the very source of life and grace. If she only knew
she was talking to the Christ, she would beg for the living water that Christ
has to offer. No doubt many times we are close to Christ in our prayer or the
Eucharist without recognizing him. We are like this Samaritan woman – unaware
that we speaking with Christ. Only when we are truly aware of how close
Christ and the great treasure he is offering us are to us when we converse
with him in prayer, are we able to beg him for the living water of his grace.
Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, I want to see beyond
the ordinary and grasp the reality of what You are offering me. You died on
the cross so that I might partake in the living water that flowed from Your
side. Grant me your grace of living water, and teach me to thirst for it
alone.
Resolution: I will ask Christ, by short invocations throughout the day, to give me
the living water of his grace.
Excerpts from the DIARY
of Saint Faustina Kowalska
780 O my God, how I pity those people who do not believe in
eternal life; how I pray for them that a ray of mercy would envelop them too,
and that God would clasp them to His fatherly bosom.
1393 Jesus, delight
of my soul, Bread of Angels,
My whole being is
plunged in You,
And I live Your
divine life as do the elect in heaven,
And the reality of
this life will not cease, though I be laid in the grave.
Jesus-Eucharist,
Immortal God,
Who dwell in my
heart without cease,
When I possess You,
death itself can do me no harm.
Love tells me that
I will see You at life's end.
Permeated by Your
divine life,
I gaze with
assurance at the heavens thrown open for me,
And death will
shame-facedly go away, empty-handed,
For Your divine
life is contained within my soul.
And although by
Your holy will, O Lord,
Death is to touch
my body,
I want this
dissolution to come as quickly as possible,
For through it I am
entering eternal life.
Jesus-Eucharist,
life of my soul,
You have raised me
up to the eternal spheres,
And this, by Your
agony and death midst terrible tortures.
26 [November 1937].
1471 Although I am
feeling weak, and my nature is clamoring for rest, I feel the inspiration of grace
telling me to take hold of myself and write, write for the comfort of souls,
whom I love so much and with whom I will share all eternity. And I desire
eternal life for them so ardently that that is why I use all my free moments,
no matter how short, for writing in the way that Jesus wishes of me.
1549 I
want to live in the spirit of faith. I accept everything that comes my way as
given me by the loving will of God, who sincerely desires my happiness. And
so I will accept with submission and gratitude everything that God sends me.
I will pay no attention to the voice of nature and to the promptings of
self-love. Before each important action, I will stop to consider for a moment
what relationship it has to eternal life and what may be the main reason for
my undertaking it: is it for the glory of God, or for the good of my own
soul, or for the good of the souls of others? If my heart says yes, then I
will not swerve from carrying out the given action, unmindful of either
obstacles or sacrifices. I will not be frightened into abandoning my
intention. It is enough for me to know that it is pleasing to God. On the
other hand, if I learn that the action has nothing in common with what I have
just mentioned, I will try to elevate it to a loftier sphere by means of a
good intention. And if I learn that something flows from my self-love, I will
cancel it out right from the start.
1557 O Jesus, keep me in holy fear, so that
I may not waste graces. Help me to be faithful to the inspirations of the
Holy Spirit. Grant that my heart may burst for love of You, rather than I
should neglect even one act of love for You.
1559 At that moment I saw Jesus, and from
His Heart there issued those same two rays, which enveloped me, whole and
entire. At the same moment, all my torments vanished. My daughter, the
Lord said, know that
of yourself you are just what you have gone through, and it is only by My
grace that you are a participant of eternal life and all the gifts I lavish
on you. And with these words of the Lord, there came to me a
true knowledge of myself. Jesus is giving me a lesson in deep humility and,
at the same time, one of total trust in Him. My heart is reduced to dust and
ashes, and even if all people were to trample me under their feet, I would
still consider that a favor.
I feel and am, in fact, very deeply permeated with the knowledge that I am nothing, so that real humiliations will be a refreshment for me.
1584 O inconceivable goodness of God, which shields us at
every step, may Your mercy be praised without cease. That You became a
brother to humans, not to angels, is a miracle of the unfathomable mystery of
Your mercy. All our trust is in You, our first-born Brother, Jesus Christ,
true God and true Man. My heart flutters with joy to see how good God is to
us wretched and ungrateful people. And as a proof of His love, He gives us the
incomprehensible gift of Himself in the person of His Son. Throughout all
eternity we shall never exhaust that mystery of love. O mankind, why do you
think so little about God being truly among us? O Lamb of God, I do not know
what to admire in You first: Your gentleness, Your hidden life, the emptying
of Yourself for the sake of man, or the constant miracle of Your mercy, which
transforms souls and raises them up to eternal life. Although You are hidden
in this way, Your omnipotence is more manifest here than in the creation of
man. Though the omnipotence of Your mercy is at work in the justification of
the sinner, yet Your action is gentle and hidden.
+ J.M.J.
The Soul's Expectation of the Coming of the Lord. 1589 I do not know, O Lord, at what hour You will come. And so I keep constant watch and listen As Your chosen bride, Knowing that You like to come unexpected. Yet, a pure heart will sense You from afar, O Lord. I wait for You, Lord, in calm and silence, With great longing in my heart And with invincible desire. I feel that my love for You is changing into fire, And that it will rise up to heaven like a flame at life's end, And then all my wishes will be fulfilled. Come then, at last, my most sweet Lord And take my thirsting heart There, to Your home in the lofty regions of heaven, Where Your eternal life perdures. Life on this earth is but an agony, As my heart feels it is created for the heights. For it the lowlands of this life hold no interest, For my homeland is in heaven-this I firmly believe.
The Creator
and The Creature.
1692 I adore You,
Lord and Creator, hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. I adore You for all the
works of Your hands, that reveal to me so much wisdom, goodness and mercy, O
Lord. You have spread so much beauty over the earth, and it tells me about
Your beauty, even though these beautiful things are but a faint reflection of
You, Incomprehensible Beauty. And although You have hidden Yourself and
concealed Your beauty, my eye, enlightened by faith, reaches You, and my soul
recognizes its Creator, its Highest Good; and my heart is completely immersed
in prayer of adoration.
My Lord and
Creator, Your goodness encourages me to converse with You. Your mercy
abolishes the chasm
which separates the Creator from the creature. To converse with You, O Lord,
is the delight of my heart. In You I find everything that my heart could
desire. Here Your light illumines my mind, enabling it to know You more and
more deeply. Here streams of graces flow down upon my heart. Here my soul
draws eternal life. O my Lord and Creator, You alone, beyond all these gifts,
give Your own self to me and unite Yourself intimately with Your miserable
creature. Here, without searching for words, our hearts understand each
other. Here, no one is able to interrupt our conversation. What I talk to You
about, Jesus, is our secret, which creatures shall not know and Angels dare
not ask about. These are secret acts of forgiveness, known only to Jesus and
me; this is the mystery of His mercy, which embraces each soul separately.
For this incomprehensible goodness of Yours, I adore You, O Lord and Creator,
with all my heart and all my soul. And, although my worship is so little and
poor, I am at peace because I know that You know it is sincere, however
inadequate...
+ God's Infinite Goodness in
Redeeming Man.
1747 God, You could have saved
thousands of worlds with one word; a single sigh from Jesus would have
satisfied Your justice. But You Yourself, Jesus, purely out of love for us,
underwent such a terrible Passion. Your Father's justice would have been
propitiated with a single sigh from You, and all Your self-abasement is
solely the work of Your mercy and Your inconceivable love. On leaving the
earth, O Lord, You wanted to stay with us, and so You left us Yourself in the
Sacrament of the Altar, and You opened wide Your mercy to us. There is no
misery that could exhaust You; You have called us all to this fountain of
love, to this spring of God's compassion. Here is the tabernacle of Your
mercy, here is the remedy for all our ills. To You, O living spring of mercy,
all souls are drawn; some like deer, thirsting for Your love, others to wash
the wound of their sins, and still others, exhausted by life, to draw
strength. At the moment of Your death on the Cross, You bestowed upon us
eternal life; allowing Your most holy side to be opened, You opened an
inexhaustible spring of mercy for us, giving us Your dearest possession, the
Blood and Water from Your Heart. Such is the omnipotence of Your mercy. From
it all grace flows to us.
1811 But I want to tell you that eternal
life must begin already , here on earth through Holy Communion. Each Holy
Communion makes you more capable of communing with God throughout eternity.
And so, my King, I do not ask You for anything, although I know that You can give me everything. I ask You for one thing only: remain forever the King of my heart; that is enough for me.
(Diary of Sister
Faustina Kowalska Notebook-II-780)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-V-1393, 1471, 1549, 1557, 1559, 1584) (Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-V-1589)
(Diary of Sister
Faustina Kowalska Notebook-VI-1692, 1747)
(Preparation
for Holy Communion-1811)
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