Thirst

Thirst

In today’s Gospel, we have Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.  In parishes with RCIA programs, this Sunday also marks the first of the three scrutinies – special Masses with prayers for the spiritual preparation of those getting ready to be baptized at Easter.  The purpose of the scrutinies is to help the elect (those preparing for baptism) grow in their perception of sin, and their desire for salvation.  Each story – the Samaritan Woman at the Well, the Healing of the Man Born Blind, and the Raising of Lazarus has something to do with the journey towards faith in Christ, which the elect will receive in their Baptism at the Easter Vigil.

But for both of us – those who are preparing for baptism, and those who are already baptized – this is an opportunity to reflect on our own journey towards faith in Christ, which will not be complete until we reach that place where faith gives way to sight. 

The operative image in this Sunday’s Gospel is that of thirst.  We are all thirsty for something – we all desire something.  The Gospel begins with Jesus asking the Samaritan woman for a drink, and after their little exchange about living water, He then asks her to go call her husband.  She dodges the question by saying she has no husband, but Jesus demonstrates to her that he knows she has had five husbands and is currently living with a man who is not her husband.  Some scripture scholars think that the reason why she came to the well at noon – at the hottest part of the day – was to avoid the other women, because she was an outcast as a result of her marital situation.

And yet by the end of the Gospel passage, Jesus, who has spoken truthfully yet without judgment to this woman, has moved her to become an apostle to the Samaritans.  She forgets even her water jar, a symbol of her (and our) repeated efforts to quench our own thirst, and goes to tell everyone in the city, and they too come to find their own thirst quenched by encountering Jesus.

It is hard for us sometimes to see how God could possibly “quench” our thirst.  But often what we are thirsting for is not even what we think we are thirsting for – and often, when we finally get what we want, we find we are still thirsty: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.”  At the same time, it is unlikely if you are reading this that you have not had a taste of the “living water” that Jesus is speaking of, the deeper satisfaction that comes from encountering God.  The clearest sign of such an encounter is our ability to leave our water jar behind, and share with others the living water we have received.  What was the last time you had a sip of the living water of an encounter with God?

Pope St. John Paul II, at the closing evening prayer vigil of World Youth Day in Rome in the Year 2000 shared these words with the almost 2 million young people who were gathered there.  And those words are still relevant to us today:

“This evening I will give you the Gospel. It is the Pope’s gift to you at this unforgettable vigil. The word which it contains is the word of Jesus. If you listen to it in silence, in prayer, seeking help in understanding what it means for your life from the wise counsel of your priests and teachers, then you will meet Christ and you will follow him, spending your lives day by day for him!

It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”