I Shall Give Living Water
1. A Deep Personal Encounter
2. Living Water
Introduction
1. A Deep Personal Encounter
Often we are not willing to listen to people who judge us or who look down on us. The people we can easily listen to and whom we can encounter from person to person are those who do not criticize us but respect us. Even though we have not always been the persons and Christians we should have been, we know that Jesus always treats us with respect and sees the potentials for good in us. Let us ask our Lord in this Eucharist that we may treat one another with the same esteem as he shows us.
2. Living Water
The liturgy of today reminds us strongly of our baptism. It is the water that began to quench our thirst for all that is good and worthwhile, above all for God himself. It is the water that never dries up; for baptism is not just a ritual but life, a new way of living, a lasting attachment to the person of Christ and union with the community of the Church. It is the life of Christ that keeps growing in us. Jesus himself nourishes this life here in the Eucharist. Let us ask him to keep giving us this living water and to make us share it with others.
First Reading: Water Flowing from the Rock
Thirst is the most painful trial of travelers in the desert. God is to his people on the march the rock on whom they can rely and the source of life-giving water.
1 Reading: Exodus 17:3-7
In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? a little more and they will stone me!” The LORD answered Moses, “Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.” This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
Responsorial Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him. R.
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. R.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.” R.
Second Reading: The Love of God Has Been Poured Out into Our Hearts. Through Christ, who died for us, God has poured out into our hearts everything that we thirst for: faith, hope in God’s future, the Spirit of love.
2 Reading: Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
Brothers and sisters: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Acclamation: John 4:42, 15
Lord, you are truly the Savior of the world;
give me living water, that I may never thirst again
Gospel: Give Me Your Living Water
Jesus enters into a personal dialogue with the Samaritan woman. He reveals himself to her as the giver of living, ever-running water, that is, the giver of new life to us.
Gospel John 4:5-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” —For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking with you.” At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the saviour of the world.”
Commentary
“…but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
I love what I read from the Vatican liturgy for this day and Fr Tommy Lane’s simple description of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The excerpts are what you see below.
Today’s readings are centered on Baptism and new life. Living water represents God’s Spirit who comes to us in Baptism, penetrating every aspect of our lives and quenching our spiritual thirst. The Holy Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the Sacraments of God in the Church are the primary sources of the living water of Divine Grace. We are assembled here in the Church to drink this water of eternal life and salvation. Washed in it at Baptism, renewed by its abundance at each Eucharist, invited to it in every proclamation of the Word, and daily empowered by the anointing of the Spirit, we are challenged by today’s Gospel to remain thirsty for the living water, which only God can give.
God has a purpose for every people. He has for the Israelites led by Moses through the desert and for the Christians in Rome originally addressed by Paul’s Letter. Surely, God has a purpose for each and everyone of us.
God also had a plan for the woman of Samaria (John 4:5-42). It seemed just like any other day. She was coming to the well on her own instead of with the women of the town probably because she may have felt excluded due to her sinful past. There she met Jesus and he knew everything about her, about her past and her marriages. But Jesus also had a plan for her, and that plan was to lead her to him. Instead of the water of her plans Jesus offered himself as the water to sustain. Jesus uncovered her past so that what was sinful could be healed. She came to the well bringing a water jar but she found much more than water, so she left her jar by the well and hurried back to the townspeople whom she had been avoiding to tell them that she may have found the Messiah. Just as the Hebrews in the desert in the first reading are a warning to us, the woman of Samaria is an example to us. By sheer grace, like her, we have heard Jesus offer us living water. Jesus knows all about us, even what we do not want to face. But Jesus wants to give us a new identity in himself, to transform us. Of course this happens above all in baptism which is why the readings today are so appropriate for catechumens and the first scrutiny. But Jesus continues to hold out that offer of grace to us.
Blessing
In this Eucharist
God has again quenched our thirst
by giving us his Son Jesus.
Now we are strong enough again
to go our difficult way in the desert,
a way of renewal and conversion
to God and to others.
Let our thirst never be satisfied
unless we become to one another
a drink of refreshing water.
May God give you strength and bless you:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.
May the Lord go with you to love him in all you meet. R/ Thanks be to God.