3rd Sunday Lent,3
March 2013 / YEAR A
READINGS / Exodus
17:3-7 | Psalm 95 | Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 |
John 4:45-52
[__01]
Is there water? Yes, the Good News is
that water is available for the people of this Samaritan town.
A well – or cistern -
is visible above ground. Jesus, our
Savior, has stopped there, asking for a drink around Noon, in the midday heat.
There is water for
Jesus also.
[__02]
While a well exists as the town water supply, a new well, a new fountain is
being offered by Jesus our Savior.
The Samaritan woman is
very interested.
On behalf of you and
me, the Samaritan woman asks our Savior, “Sir,
give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to
draw water.”(John 4:15)
At the well, the woman’s
request then is for faith, for confidence in God.
This confidence in
God’s love and goodness is the water which flows and brings us closer to the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Bringing
us closer, it is, shall we say “UNITED WATER”
There is no invoice.
[__03] Nevertheless, each of us is called to make an
investment of our selves, to gain access to this source.
While not actually
underground, the source – our confidence in God – may seem at times hidden or
obscure.
At the very least… we
may need a little help finding the source.
Our own attitudes or
practices may get in the way.
The Samaritan woman
herself is invited to the well but also to repentance and conversion.
[__04]
I’d like to touch on 3 aspects of
Catholic faith, teaching. These are aspects which help us to draw the water up
to the surface.
*** I
base this reflection on our Church Tradition ..in particular “The Virtues” /
“Faith” as part of “Life in Christ” in the Catechism. (CCC articles 1814, 1815,
1816) ****
[__05] Is there water? YES
FIRST – Faith calls us
to trust, to confidence in God’s ways, God’s plan. This often differ from our
own agenda and timeline.
We pray and practice
our faith when we recite “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” in the Lord’s
Prayer.
We practice our faith
when we say this at a time of –
· ___ Crisis
or difficult transition
·
Heartbreak
or sorrow
·
AND
ALSO .. at times of joy, on Commencement Day…on the day of an award … on the
day of an achievement or milestone completed.
We practice our faith
when we ask for more living water for our studies, our commitments, a marriage,
a child, a family.
And, while Isaiah the
prophet wrote that God’s ways are often “higher than our ways” and God’s
thoughts “higher than our thoughts” (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9), neither Isaiah nor
Jesus wants us to love or to believe in blindness.
Faith helps us to see
what our eyes cannot reveal. Paul emphasizes “faith and sight”.
Just as we grow in
love by learning about the other person.. we grow in faith by learning,
studying, spiritual reading, devotion, prayer.
There is water here.
[__06]
SECOND ---- faith involves works, practice.
In the epistle/letter of St. James, we read a very blunt doctrine, “Faith
without works is dead.” (James 2:26)
Other parables and
words of Jesus also express this.
Regarding our own worship before the altar, Jesus reminds us to manifest
love and esteem toward God but toward others.
Both relationships manifest our
faith.
Jesus says, “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the
altar, and there recall that your brother [or sister] has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your
brother [or sister], and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
Faith calls us to be
charitable, generous and reminds us that we can love even those who are
difficult.
Faith is also a
recognition of God’s power, transcendence which gives us MOBILITY and
MOTIVATION to transcend difficulties – and difficult people with love.
There is water here.
[__07]
THIRD -- Faith involves being a
witness – “keeping the faith”
When we have faith in
Christ, we are in God’s “witness protection program.”
This is a little
different from, say, United States Federal Witness Protection.
If I were in Federal
Witness Protection, I would negotiate with the prosecutor some arrangements
for my life. I would receive a new
identity, and avoid being seen and known. Some people might think I had died.
In Jesus’s witness
protection program, we also die to ourselves, to our desires. But, we remain
alive to God and in God.
We are given – as the
Samaritan woman is given – a new identity –through the sacramental life of
faith, of baptism, of the sacrament of penance and reconciliation.
But, we enter this
witness protection program not to hide but to reveal ourselves.
Choosing faith,
choosing to believe in God’s plan for me (for you) means also that I recognize
that my life has value… that I value or
esteem myself .
This calls us to
discern carefully the values that others may live by.
It calls us to discern
the ways in which we seek and receive intimacy from others.
Do my friends help me
in my faith? Or, do they block my navigation to the well?
Faith does not exist
in a vacuum of outer space where heaven is also usually imagined several
thousand miles in orbit above the earth.
Faith exists in real
relationships with Jesus as our Savior and with others.
Being in “witness
protection”….means not only that we have a guardian angel.
It means also that we
are protecting and guarding ourselves from harm. It is not easy to practice
faith … to seek the virtuous way if others do not support us.
We seek this witness
protection, nevertheless, so that others can see us and know us for who we
really are.
And, so that we
practice what we preach.
By our lives, we allow
others to taste and see the faith and confidence in God that guides and
nourishes us.
The Samaritan woman,
also now in Christian witness protection, goes into town, as a missionary bring
everyone one back to the good news at the well, bringing them also to faith in
Jesus.
There is water here.
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