24.02.2008 - 3a Sunday of Lent -
year A
First Reading Exod 17,3-7 Psalm 95 Second Reading Rom 5,1-2.5-8 Gospel Reading
John 4,5-42
od is creator and also Father! God's creating is love which bestows life, love
which manifests itself and gives of itself! God's creating is complete, that
is, not only what we see and feel with our senses is his work, but also what
we cannot see and what remains outside our comprehension or control. He is the
creator of all things "visible and invisible". With this we mean that
all those spiritual realities which are part of mankind and of which he is afraid,
are under the dominion of God! Invisible realities include our souls, the angels
and the demons and all those spirits and forces we feel within us and which
seem to come from without. St Paul considers these realities which we are unable
to define because they are invisible. In a certain way the forces of nature
which we cannot dominate are also invisible.
Everything is God's work. We might find it difficult to think that the demons
and those forces which make us do evil are creatures of God. How can we think
that God being infinite goodness and love, could create evil. This can only
come from disobedience to him of his creatures who have been given the great
gift of freedom. This explains the existence of demons and spirits that create
suffering and make men and women do evil. Knowing that God, our Father, is the
only creator of everything, we no longer need fear anything and can love everything
that he places within us. Reading the catechism we are helped to discover many
other aspects linked and dependent on our faith in God the creator. He created
out of nothing, he is the only creator of everything and creates together with
his Son and with the Holy Spirit! The Son is his Word, his plan, the Spirit
his wisdom. The creation is the fruit of the love of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit and is the free work of his love!
Water is the image mentioned frequently in the First and Gospel readings. Water
as the source of life, as a necessary element for mankind. God's people searched
for water in the desert and Jesus wanted some water at midday in Sicar. We all
need water, not only to quench his thirst, but also for his inner life. What
is the water for our inner lives? Is there something that can spiritually satisfy
man in his wandering upon the earth? Who can quench this thirst of ours?
The people grumbled at Moses in the desert: Moses did not know what to do, he
had no solution. Where to find enough water for all the people and their livestock?
Moses' only resource is God. And God does not disappoint him. God listen to
his prayer, but asks of him an act of blind obedience. Moses must take a stick,
which has nothing special about it except that it was given to him by God himself,
and with it he must strike a rock. It is certainly not the stick that will break
the rock and neither is it the rock that will turn to water, but God wishes
to answer his servant Moses before all the people. And the water flows abundantly
from the rock. God listened to Moses' prayer on behalf of the people who complained
and were incapable of faith!
All this is a sign. It is Jesus who give us the true water that will placate
our thirst. At Sicar Jesus meets people who are thirsty, but incapable of finding
the spring of peace, of joy, of life. Men and women search for momentary, short-lived
satisfaction, and then they search again in a continual race between illusion
and delusion. In grasping momentary satisfaction they commit and abandon creating
reciprocal distrust and shock. "You have had five husbands and the one
who is with you now is not your husband!" Jesus summarises in this way
man's frenetic search for happiness. He wants relationships, because he expects
joy from them, but relationships between men and women are disappointing if
God is not behind them with his stability and eternity! And so Jesus reveals
himself and gives the image of the one able to quench the thirst of our deepest
desires. "It is I who talk to you", he says to the Samaritan woman
who know that this is a man who will not delude for he has been promised by
God.
Jesus is the spring of water necessary to quench mankind's thirst. Those who
meet him and listen to him and let him love them soon understand. The Samaritans,
with whom he stayed for two days, listened to him and understood that he was
the saviour of the world, he who gives his life to the world. Jesus knows God,
he knows men and women, he knows what God can give them to fill their lives
with joy, to save them! What satisfies men and women if not the Holy Spirit?
And this is what Jesus gives us, so St Paul tells us. "Through the Holy
Spirit, God's love has flooded our hearts. It was while we were still helpless,
that at the appointed time, Christ died for us. God demonstrated his love for
us while we were still sinners". Jesus is the spring of water that quenches
humanities thirst! He died to give us the Holy Spirit, that, through him, we
might have fullness of life!