March 08, 2015
3rd Sunday of Lent A Cycle of Readings
Jacob’s Well is a special place where the patriarch Jacob met his wife Rachael. Here, in the Gospel according to St. John, an unnamed woman meets Jesus. It is awkward. She is a Samaritan and Jesus is a Jew. She is a woman and Jesus is a man. She is being shunned by other women in the village coming as she does to the well at midday. Jesus asks her for a drink. She is surprised. Jesus says: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.†Jesus knows her past. She has been married five times and the man she is living with is not her husband. Jesus treats her with respect and talks with her about true worship. She slowly comes to know that he is a holy man and a prophet. She wonders if Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, the messiah. Jesus says to her: “I am he, the one speaking to you.†Overjoyed the woman leaves her water jug at the well and goes to tell the people in her village: “Come see a man who knows everything I have done. Could he be the Christ?†This unnamed woman sets an example for us: she comes to believe in Jesus and brings others to Christ! Like the woman at Jacob’s Well, Taylor, our catechumen, has been in conversation with Jesus within a circle of believers. He is coming to believe in him too as he readies to receive the Easter Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion. Let us pray for him.
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3rd Sunday of Lent B Cycle of Readings
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4th Sunday of Lent
