Read this week's message from Father Don
Dear parishioners
Lent is the season in which adult converts undergo their final preparation before baptism at Easter. The mass readings for the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent (in Year A) were specifically chosen with converts in mind.
In the first of the gospels, Jesus meets a sinful Samaritan woman at a local well. She has come to draw water for her household but Jesus recognizes in her a longing for something more and so he says “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but the one who drinks of the water that I will give will never be thirsty. It will become in him a spring of water gushing up to eternal life (John 4.13).”
Thirst is a metaphor for human longing and human need. We all thirst for love, peace of heart and relief from suffering because they are often absent from our present experience. Life is hard and so we constantly stand in need of encouragement and comforting. We can easily appreciate the psalmist’s plaintive cry “O God, my body pines for you like a dry weary land without water (Ps. 63).”
Against this background, “living water” is a very appealing image but also rather puzzling. What exactly is that water? It is Jesus himself, the god who enters into our human woundedness and lifts us above it. He is the spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
Knowing the painful reality of unsatisfied human needs and longing for refreshment, we can, with the Samaritan woman, turn to Jesus and confidently ask him “Lord, give me this water always (John 4.15)”.
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