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The third, fourth
and fifth Sundays of Lent will teach us about each Sunday about one of the
signs of baptism.
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These readings
are found only in the liturgical year A, all of them are baptismal readings.
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During these 3 Sundays the catechumens will do the
scrutinies which are penitential rites
to help the catechumens in their journey towards the Sacraments of initiation.
FIRST
READING – Ex 17:3-7
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In chapter 15
there is another scene about water, there they cannot drink because the water
is bitter.
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Now they are
exhausted and thirsty, they want water.
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They do not
attack Moses, but God. They think that God
is not able to take care of them in the wilderness.
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Their concept of
God is very primitive, God is he who
solves all the difficulties. As the people of Israel walks the journey of faith they will
learn little by little who God is. Their prophets will tell them that God wants to have a loving personal
relationship with the People and with each one of the members of the people of
Israel. Still more, God wants to have this relationship with each human being.
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Moses asks God,
and God, as always, answers like a loving and caring parent.
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Take the elders,
so they will be witnesses of what I will do, and struck the rock with the rod
with which you struck the river.
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And water flows in abundance.
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The last sentence
of this Sunday’s reading tells us the real meaning of the quarrel, they doubt
about God
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Does their
behavior resemble ours?
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 95
If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart
Come let us sing joyfully to the Lord
Let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation
Let us greet him with thanksgiving;
Let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
Come, let us bow down in worship
Let us kneel before the Lord who made us
For he is our God
And we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice
Harden not your hearts as at Meribah
As in Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me
They tested me though they had seen my works.
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In the preceding
chapters Paul has explained how do we reach salvation
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In the chapters
which will follow after this reading,
Paul will concentrate in explaining what salvation is.
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In this fragment
of his letter Paul switches from the word faith to the word life.
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The word life has
a physical meaning in Rom 7,1-3
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Apart from those
two verses, life has a variety of meanings which we know through the
words used by Paul:
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Peace, in the
sense of the Hebrew word Shalom, which
is the fullness of all that is good and the absence of anything bad. The true
shalom will be reached only in Heaven.
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Grace, gift . We
called grace the gift to participate into God’s life during our
earthly journey.
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Hope which enables us to continue with joy our
journey even among the hardships of life.
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Love which God
has poured out into our hearts
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The Holy Spirit
whom the Father has given to us.
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The death and
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us when we were still
sinners.-
GOSPEL: John 4:5-42
Jesus is going from
Jerusalem to Galilee, he had to pass through Samaria.
At the town of
Shechem he stops and sits at the well Jacob had given to his sons.
He is tired, hungry
and thirsty. His disciples had gone off to the town to buy food.
Dialogue with the Samaritan woman:
The woman comes
to the well at noon, this is not the normal time to go to the well, but maybe
her life was not accepted by the other women, thus she used to come at the noon
when nobody was there.
Jesus says “give
me a drink”
The woman answers “You are a man and a Jew, I am a Samaritan woman. (I man was not
supposed to speak in public with a woman and much less with a Samaritan woman.
Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans)
Jesus says: if you knew who it is that is asking for a
drink, you would ask him instead.
The woman
recognizes something different in this man: Sir, you do not have a bucket….
Jesus is willing to drink from the woman’s bucket. This is truly what the Son
of God has done, share our bucket-our life becoming human one like us.
Jesus tells her that anyone drinking the water from
the well will continue to be thirsty, he can give her a living water, which
shall become a fountain within her, leaping up to eternal life.
The woman wants this water, but she is still at the
material level, if this man gives her that kind of water she will not have to
come back to well every day.
Jesus wants to take the woman a step higher, “go tell
you husband and come back here”
The woman is
drawn to the light although she is still reluctant, this man knows her life.
How much she has been looking to satiate her thirst of love, always in the
wrong place.
Jesus tells her you are right you have had 5 husbands
and the one you have now is not yours.
The woman says “Sir you are a prophet”
She engages in a conversation over the place of
worship, maybe she is embarrassed by what Jesus has told her, she still fights
against the light which is given to her.
The true worshiper will worship the Father in Spirit
and truth, because God is Spirit.
The woman now talks about the Messiah
Jesus makes to
her the greatest revelation “I who speak to you, am he”
The scene is changed
now.
- The disciples come back, they do not ask even
being surprised to see him talking to a woman.
- The woman leaves her bucket, she does not need it
any more, she has finally found peace and reconciliation within herself, she
already has the fountain of water promised by Jesus, her joy is complete.
She wants to share it with the people of her town “come to see a man who
has told me the things I ever did, could he be the Messiah?”
- Meanwhile the disciples want Jesus to eat, Jesus
like he did with the woman talking to her about the living water, now he
speaks to the disciples about another bread, the bread of the will of the
Father. (In the first temptation he answered “not only of bread…. But the
will of God.)
- He explains to them that they have been sent to
reap what others had worked. In the Church each one has its own mission
given by the Lord, and all together we do the will of the Father.
- The people from the town come and on listening to
Jesus, they believe in him.
Fire that always burns, love that is always on fire and is never lukewarm, enkindle in me the fire of your love, so that I may love you. I love you, Jesus, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. I would like to love you more and that all love you. I would like to love you for me and for all your creatures. Most Holy Virgin Mary, grant me the grace that all be saved and no one be condemned. St. Anthony M. Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Prayer
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The more we went into that immense sea of waters the more my spirit plunged into the immense sea of God , when I looked at myself within the heart of my God and Lord more clearly than in a mirror. God was so pleased in this way of considering his infinite greatness that often times He made me feel the tenderness of his most holy arms with which His holy Majesty pressed my soul within his sacred heart…. The immensity of the sea reminded me of the immensity of God and those skies so wide brought to my mind the immense spaces of the glory of the saints. María Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 159.
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