YEAR A: HOMILY/ REFLECTION FOR 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT

YEAR A: HOMILY/ REFLECTION FOR 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT

HOMILY TOPIC: LIVING WATERS

BY: Fr. Mike Lagrimas

Jn 4:5-42 (The Samaritan Woman at the Well)

Message #314: “The Two Cohorts”
1. The Message
a) We are now in the stage of the great battle, a spiritual warfare (letter f). This is between good and evil, between God and Satan.
b) The camp of evil is being led by the Red Dragon and the Black Beast. The Red Dragon is Marxist Atheism which is the denial of God. But not many people can deny God. So there is another leader, the Black Beast. It is Masonry which leads the people into rebellion against God. The head of this evil camp is Lucifer who has two agenda: 1. to rebel against God, and 2. to make himself adored as God. His army is the demons who are poured out from hell upon the earth. With him are all the damned souls in Hell, and the evil people in this world who live in egoism, impurity and hatred. (letters b, c, and d).

c) The camp of God is led by Mary. Her army is composed of all the angels and saints in Heaven under the guidance of St. Michael the Archangel. (letter e). Those who belong to this camp are those men and women in this world who are obedient to God’s commands, Mary’s little children who follow the road she traced out. (letter g). Victory is sure for this camp. The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of is sure to come (letter h).
d) She calls on all of us to join her army in this spiritual battle. We must fight with the weapons of prayer, especially the holy rosary, and live according to Christ’s teachings (letter i).

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1. Background Information of the Gospel Event
   a) Background of Samaritans: Israel was divided into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom (called Israel, with Samaria as the capital), and the southern kingdom (called Judah or Judea, with Jerusalem as capital). When the kingdom of Judah was overrun by the Babylonians, the Jews were exiled to Babylon. This happened 14 generations after King David, and 14 generations also before Christ’s birth. The Jews in the northern kingdom remained, but in order to survive, they had to sacrifice their orthodoxy. They inter-married with pagans, offered sacrifices to pagan gods. When the Jews returned from exile, they discovered that the northern kingdom has not been faithful to Yahweh. They cannot be considered anymore as members of the Chosen People. From that time on, the Jews hated the Samaritans for being unfaithful to the Jewish covenant. The Samaritans were at best considered as “half-Jews” (hilaw o mestizo, hindi puro).
   b) Jesus gave another shock to the Jews. He talked to a woman, who was also a Samaritan, and even drank water from her. This was an unthinkable thing to do for a Jew. The Jewish society looked down on women and Samaritans. But Jesus showed that women, children, the lepers, public sinners and the outcasts of society, including the Samaritans, have equal rights and dignity with anybody else in society. This occasion was an opportunity for Jesus to proclaim His Gospel, not only to the Jews but to the Samaritans as well and to pagans in general. Jesus came not only for the Jews but also for all people, especially sinners. God’s love is for everybody. That is the good news to the whole world.

1. The Sunday Readings
   a) The first reading talks about what happened in the desert, in the place called Massah and Meribah, because people complained against God for having no water to drink. They whined: “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” God instructed Moses to strike the rock, and from that rock flowed abundant and fresh water. This was the event that Moses did not give enough glory to God, and so he was not granted the privilege to enter the Promised Land.

b) The Responsorial Psalm is a call to heed the word of God and return to Him: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” King David had in mind the rebellion of the people against God: “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.”

c) St. Paul directs the attention of the Christians in Rome to God’s abundant mercy and love for us sinners: “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He showed this by sending to us His own Son Jesus who died for our sins on the cross: “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

d) The Gospel is the incident in Samaria, when Jesus encountered a woman at the well. It was an occasion for him to call the woman to conversion and to proclaim even to this Samaritan town the message of salvation.
e) Relation to the Marian Message: The Blessed Mother is talking about the ongoing spiritual battle between the two camps, God versus the devil. As Christians, we have been washed in the living waters of Baptism. Hence, we belong to the camp of God. This means we have to be on the side of goodness, truth and holiness. We cannot be neutral in the battle. We cannot be in both camps. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me.” The waters of baptism, therefore, reminds us of our fidelity and commitment to God, especially in these times of the great battle.

1. Points for Reflection
   a) The conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well was centered on water. Water was created by God. But due to man’s sins, water was used by God in the great flood in Noah’s time. Its main purpose was not to kill people, but to cleanse the world from sin. In doing so, many people were killed, but the world was purified and given a fresh beginning. When Jesus came, the water of the world was made holy by His baptism in the Jordan. When He died on the cross, blood and water flowed from His side. His blood redeemed us from sin and death, and the water from His side cleansed us and gave us new life in baptism. Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Unless you are born of water and the Spirit you cannot have life.” It is Jesus alone who can give us the living waters of salvation.

b) We all experience two kinds of thirst in life, and unless we understand the difference between them, we will always be frustrated. The first kind of thirst is horizontal thirst. We thirst for, the good things of this earth: food, drink, companionship, fun, entertainment, a nice house, a good income and success at work or school. It’s part of our nature to desire these things; there’s nothing wrong with them.
But we also have another kind of thirst – vertical thirst. This is a deeper thirst, a deeper desire. It’s a desire for meaning and purpose. This desire is also built into our nature. There is nothing we can do to destroy it, just as there is nothing we can do to destroy our natural desires for food and water.
But unlike horizontal thirst, our vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by our own efforts. Only God himself can satisfy it. And He created us like that on purpose. It’s as if He put a homing device in the very core of our being, and it constantly draws us towards Him, towards intimate, personal contact with His eternal, transcendent love.
This is why even when all of our horizontal thirsts are satisfied, when we have money, success, and pleasure, we are still restless. Our deeper, vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by things of this world. As the Catechism puts it: “Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness” (#45). The meaning and purpose, which alone will give us true happiness, comes from friendship with God in Christ, and not from worldly success, pleasures, and human relationships. When we forget that, when we try to satisfy our vertical thirst with horizontal stuff, we put ourselves on the road to frustration, tragedy and disappointment. (cf. ePriest.com ).

c) The Samaritan woman, despite her sins, had three positive points. First, she was still sensitive to her own sinfulness. She had had five husbands, and now she was living with another man, and had not even bothered to marry him this time. That is why she chose to come to the well in the middle of the day, the hottest time of the day, when none of the other women in the town would be coming to the well. She wanted to avoid their condemnatory eyes and whispers. Definitely, she was not anymore comfortable with her sinful situation, but she was powerless to get out of it. She was a woman of great sensitivity to her sinfulness. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening in the world today. People are gradually losing the sense of sin. Less and less people go to confession. More and more people are living in sin and brazenly showing this in public. Before, the concubine is ashamed of her situation; now she is more aggressive and self-righteous than the legal wife. Before, thieves are imprisoned; now they are elected into public office. Before, gays and lesbians are hiding; now, they are out in the open and demanding their equal “human” rights. These are just a few examples. The list is getting longer and more alarming.

d) The second positive point for her is that she was eager to listen to Jesus. He was talking about the life-giving water. The idea of a new kind of water created such a great interest in her. So when Jesus talked about the life-giving water which will not make one thirsty again, she asked Him: “Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” In our life, what really interests us? As we can see from our own experience, it is more interesting to indulge in the affairs of this world than in the spiritual and heavenly matters. But as what the woman experienced, we will surely be frustrated in the long run. Time will come, and we have to pray for its coming, when we will realize the folly of running after material things, and become truly interested in the life-giving waters that Jesus offers to us.

e) The third positive point about her is that she was not contented with being forgiven by Jesus. Rather, she became a zealous and credible witness and evangelizer of the kingdom that Jesus preached. In the course of their conversation, Jesus reveals himself to her, and her life turns around, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. She runs back to the village announcing the good news to anyone she can find. And we know from the Gospel that Jesus and his disciples ended up spending three days there, and the whole town came to believe in him. She and the people of her town had been wandering through a spiritual desert, their souls slowly dying the death of frustration, boredom, and meaninglessness, even while they enjoyed material pleasures and prosperity. But Christ changed all that. We need look no further for the secret to happiness; Christ himself is the rock and the water flowing in the spiritual desert of this fallen world. (cf. ePriest.com ).

f) The lessons from the Gospel are important: First, we must acknowledge that in the eyes of God, we are all equal. God wants everybody to be saved. We have received the gift of faith. This gift is not meant to make us feel better than the rest. Rather it is a challenge for us to share this faith with others. Look at what Jesus did to the Samaritan woman. And look what the woman did afterwards: she shared the words of Jesus to her countrymen. Faith is not exclusive, but inclusive. (Use the example of the flashlight: there is the central focus of the light, but it spreads to a larger area.)
Second, during this third Sunday of Lent, we are reminded of our own baptism, the time when we were cleansed and given new life as God’s children. There is a need to remind ourselves of our sublime dignity as God’s children. Every time we come to church, we dip our fingers at the holy water at the entrance door. This is a beautiful gesture that reminds us of this truth. Otherwise, it is very easy to lose sight of it and be carried away by the worldly flood of sin and vices, and totally lose our way.
Third, the sacrament of confession is also highlighted here. In verses 16-18, the woman admitted to having no husband for she lived an adulterous life, having had five husbands. (This is one of the impurities of the Samaritan culture). In baptism we were cleansed from our sins. But after baptism, we still commit sins. Hence, there is the need for the sacrament of reconciliation.
Fourth, Jesus invites us to the fullness of life. “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.” The water that He offers us is life-giving. It is the water of grace from God, it is the water of baptism, it is the water of eternal life. When we are cleansed of our sins, and follow Jesus by faithfully keeping our baptismal promises, we will have the fullness of eternal life with Him.

YEAR A: HOMILY/ REFLECTION FOR 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT.

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