Lent 3 A (2023)
Deep inside, everyone wants to be loved.
We could say, everyone thirsts for love.
For most of us, people around us
– parents, children, spouse, friends, neighbours –
take an interest in us, spend time with us, stand by us in difficulties,
celebrate with us, look after us, help us out:
in these ways they love us,
and their love builds us up, deep inside.
The loving actions of others towards us,
are like drinks that help with our thirst for love.
When Jesus meets the woman at the well,
he knows she thirsts for love.
He promises that, through him,
this thirst will be satisfied forever,
by God’s love for her welling up inside her, always.
This gift of God’s love within us is the Holy Spirit,
and the water of baptism is the first sign of this gift.
We recall that sign every time we come to Church,
by using the baptismal water at the back
to make the sign of the cross on ourselves.
The appreciation of the love of God for us individually,
comes through getting to know Jesus,
and the Samaritan woman provides an example of this.
At first, the woman just sees Jesus as ‘a Jew’.
Then she hears him speaks compellingly of God,
and so she calls him ‘a prophet’.
She tells him that she expects the Messiah,
– God’s anointed one –
to come and, in her words, ‘tell us everything’.
She expects God’s anointed to show the truth about God.
Jesus reveals to her that he is God’s anointed –
and the Greek words used seem to include a hint of divinity too.
Through him the truth about God’s love is known
and the gift of God’s love is received.
The woman goes to tell others about her wonderful encounter.
They too spend time with Jesus and, in the finale of the piece,
recognise him as ‘the saviour of the world’.
In short, the love of God shown and known in Jesus
and, poured into our hearts, is for everyone.
The Holy Spirit within us
and the truth about God revealed in Jesus
move us – move us to thank God,
move us to admire and to adore God,
move us to awe at God’s graciousness towards us.
In spirit and in truth, we are moved to worship God,
and in every Mass,
through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus,
that is exactly what we do.