Third Sunday of Lent. Year A

St. Michael’s Church

In these weeks, I am going around the diocese celebrating the sacrament of Confirmation for children. The ceremonies are always wonderful occasions for the children and their families. There’s a special atmosphere at them. I make the point to the children that they are receiving a great gift that they’ll have for ever, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even if they should forget all about it for 20 or 30 years and then remember it, they have that gift and the Spirit will come to assist them. That’s true for all of us. We have the Holy Spirit, the living water that can quench the thirst we have in life for meaning, for peace, for direction. But perhaps we don’t think enough about this.

Today’s conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a reminder to us to open up a conversation with Jesus about what it is we are thirst for in life. His words spoken are full of the Holy Spirit. In the heat of the midday sun, the Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. She needed the water to quench a physical thirst. And Jesus opens up a conversation with her precisely on the point of being thirsty. He asks humbly: “give me a drink”. She was surprised he opened up the conversation as at that time the Samaritans were considered enemies by the Jews. When the great exile had happened centuries before, most Jews were exiled to Babylon but some remained and intermarried with the settlers. These were the Samaritans. For this reason the Jews considered them heretical, impure, to be avoided.

Jesus’ opening question, give me a drink, is, on the one hand, a sign of his physical thirst, tired out by the journey. But there’s a deeper thirst. He is thirsting to help this woman. He clearly must have already known about her. He recognises she has a deep thirst for meaning, for truth, for direction. There’s a lot going on in her life. She has already had 5 husbands and is now on her 6^th man. She is a woman who reflects on life as seen by her question regarding how are we to worship God, and the local questions about which temple is right. She has a lot going on inside her. And Jesus wants to help her. So he engages in a conversation that will change her life for ever.

The Church proposes this Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent as an invitation to each of us to bring our lives into prayerful conversation with Jesus. A deep down heartfelt prayer with Jesus begins with a moment of honest self-examination – what am I living for? What are the goals of my life? What gives me direction in life? Of course, we can say, our family, our job, our loved ones, even our Church. But deep down, Jesus knows our deepest thirst is for a true relationship with him. And that relationship is what the Holy Spirit brings to maturity within us. And that is what really makes us happy and gives us peace.

There’s a wonderful line from Ps 50:  “create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.”

Yes, we want to live with a clean heart, to be in God’s presence, to have the Holy Spirit with joy and a willing spirit. And that’s the gift God in his great mercy and love wants to give us. He wants, as the Second Reading puts it today, to pour the Holy Spirit into our hearts. He gave his life for this. It’s what we receive in Confirmation but how alive is that in our lives? We need to have that conversation with Jesus and ask for a deeper sense of the gift of the living water that is inside us. Like the Samaritan woman, we’ve to let ourselves be brought to a new life, a new energy, a new desire to go out to others.

The last and important point, however, is this. Jesus wants us to recognise that our prayer moment with him can be extended throughout the day as we hear him say “give me a drink…I am thirsty” in those we meet. The words “give me a drink” addressed to the Samaritan woman were words taken up again by Jesus on the Cross. His dying words on the Cross, “I thirst” were words that inspired Mother Teresa to immerse herself in love of God and outreach to the poorest of the poor.

So for the week ahead, let’s keep the invitation from today’s Gospel in mind. Jesus says ‘“I thirst” for your love, your prayer, your soul. I thirst to give you the Holy Spirit to quench your thirst for the Holy Spirit. Let’s talk things over about how your life is going… I want to help you”. And then Jesus is also saying to us: ‘Look out for me saying to you “I thirst…give me a drink” in all those who are asking for help, or advice, or consolation or direction… I am waiting for you to give me a drink”.