The gospel for this 3rd Sunday of Lent depicts Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman, asking her for a drink. This is a strange thing, Jews and Samaritans were enemies. As he did on many occasions, Jesus is breaking social and cultural barriers that had characterized those two peoples. He exemplifies the Love he taught us: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mat 5:44).
In this gospel, different people are shocked by the gesture of Jesus. First, the woman is shocked to see a Jew approaching, asking her for something: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” On their return from buying food, the disciples are also shocked to see Jesus doing what is forbidden in their eyes. However, Jesus is not ashamed to be blamed, provided he gains back the thirsty woman. God does his best to invite us to have a share in his divine life.
Jesus is the one who initiates the dialogue with the woman. He found her in her misery. God is finding us in our stray. Once, a young man asked a priest, “Father, will I ever find God?” The priest answered: “Don’t worry, God will find you.” In the same line, Blaise Pascal wrote what Jesus usually tells a God’s seeker: “Console yourself; you would not seek me if you had not found me.” God is the first to love us before we love him. Saint John expounds it in this way: “…not that we loved God, but that he loved us...” (1Jn 4:10). Truly, God is passing by in our ordinary life, like the woman at the well. We just need to open our eyes of faith in order to see him and then enter into conversation with him. God is in our midst. He is not far from us. On this, we should not look for him in the stars while he is washing us our feet.
In this encounter, Jesus opens the eyes of the woman to know more. She is given a chance to recognize Jesus, not as anyone, but as truly the prophet, the Messiah, the Christ. While she used to talk about the Messiah, she is now privileged to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him. She is talking to a person who is touching her thirsty heart. To know God as a person is more important than to know the name God. What matters is to be in a relationship with God and experience his love. The woman experiences God's love in a special way when she learns that Jesus is the source of the water that quenches any thirst.: “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” The water that Jesus gives us enables us to head toward eternal life. This water is the graces and blessings we receive in the sacraments, visible and invisible signs of God in our midst. The river is flowing before our eyes, and we are dying of thirst. We insist on having a definition of water by proving its formula. We need to accept God's offer instead of preoccupying ourselves with searching for a definition. We need to quench our thirst with the water God is giving us rather than questioning why the water is given us. Like the Samaritan Woman, let us cry out to the Lord: “Lord, give this Water, so that I may not be thirsty any more.”
We thank the Lord, who is always thirsty to save us. He always makes us aware of our thirst and our hunger, and by his initiative, we desire to receive his grace-filled offer. As did the Samaritan, let us invite the Lord to stay with and in us. We can do nothing pleasing to God unless He is with us. So, the challenge for us is to open our hearts wide so that the Lord may find a suitable dwelling in us and so divinize us day after day.
