MERCY MEETS MISERY AT THE WELL
March 12, 2023
Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

The Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, brought her empty bucket at high noon, when the other women left. She was married and divorced way too many times. She was looked down upon by the other women, judged and condemned and tossed to the side. The loneliness, the abuse, and the betrayals of her life had drained her heart. She brought her bucket, empty, just like her heart was empty.

She was emotionally and spiritually thirsting for unconditional love and acceptance. Her spirit was desolate, as bone dry as things trying to live in the desert.

Once again, knowing the rules that Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans and that men do not talk to women whatsoever in any one-on-one conversation with nobody else around, Jesus, you reached out to this broken and thirsty woman with your tender mercy. Knowing full well how thirsty she was for love, you asked her, “Give me a drink.”

Jesus, you remind me of your great thirst for me. Your holy saint, Mother Teresa of Kolkata, directed that the words, “I thirst!” be displayed next to the tabernacle in the convent church of the Missionaries of Charity.

How do you experience your thirst for Jesus and His thirst for you in your life?

Going back to that bucket. That woman, now affirmed in your love, and well on the way to the healing of her empty heart, standing tall, leaves her bucket at the well. This woman becomes one of your first missionary disciples. She runs back to the people of her village with the message that you, Lord, are the Messiah. You are the great I am! – the Son of God – come into the world to quench the thirst of every human being. Everyone will be included in your merciful love!

Once I experience your unquenchable love for me, the priorities of my life are rearranged. My bucket, sometimes filled with the idols of my life, my needs for more and more possessions or my addictions or my inflated ego or my resentments, no longer matter. Like the holy woman of Samaria, my bucket is left behind. With you Lord at the center of my life, all will be well and every manner of thing will be well!

How do you notice the thirst for more in others in your life and how do you share the living water of Jesus with them?

What makes this difficult?

What can you do this Lent in your relationship with Jesus that will help you share Jesus’ unconditional love with others?