Dear friends in Christ
With the Third Sunday of Lent we begin a sequence of three stunning Sunday Gospels which will bring us to the start of Holy Week: The Samaritan Woman at the Well, the Curing of the Man Born Blind and the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead. Each of these narratives, in their own way, prepare us for the Easter Mysteries. Jesus is the One who alone can give us all that we thirst and long for. Although these Gospel passages are long (we normally read the shorter versions!) they reward careful reflection. Jesus desires to draw all people to Himself, and by the miracles he performs, shows us that as God He can bring about marvels in our lives. Commenting on the Gospel of the Samaritan Women on this Sunday, St Augustine writes: She came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race from the Jews. We must then recognise ourselves in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach us what was to come. She came then to draw water. She had simply come to draw water; in the normal way of man or woman. He was promising the Holy Spirit in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp his meaning, what was her reply? "The woman says to him: Master, give me this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water." Her need forced her to this labour, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could hear those words: "Come to me, all who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labours might be at an end; but she was not yet able to understand.
As we hasten through Lent, let us do so with all the desire of that woman who, having found Jesus, wished to be fulfilled for life and eternity, by His very self.
God bless you!
Msgr Kevin Hale