Third Sunday of Lent
Living Water
How am I like the woman at the well? This reflection from Team RCIA provides us, as a parish welcoming community, to accompany our catechumens and candidates in their diving deeper into anything that might keep them (and us) from following more deeply, loving more dearly, and seeing more clearly.
Background: Jesus will step over boundaries in order to bring the good news to everyone. Although the Samaritans claimed to be authentic inheritors of God’s covenant, the Jews regarded them as apostates and refused to allow them to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. And so, the Samaritans had built their own Temple on Mt. Gerizim. Yet in this passage Jesus not only asks a Samaritan but a woman to give him a drink of water. An important detail: she is coming to the village well alone and in the heat of the day probably because the other women won’t have anything to do with her because her checkered marital history. She is an outsider.
- In what ways have you found yourself alone, thirsty, dried out, and hopeless?
- What are you afraid to tell Jesus about yourself even though you want to?
- What do you want to tell him that you are really thirsty for?
- How has he already given you living water? How have you shared it with others?
Practice: Blessing ourselves with holy water as we enter church is an ancient custom. Rather than being a bit of Catholic magic, it is meant to remind us of our baptism, of the cleansing that God continually gives us and of God’s invitation to be part of his covenant people. The gesture proclaims our belief in Christ as Redeemer and the words our faith in the Trinity. How can you make this gesture more intentional for yourself?