OMELIE / Omelie EN

15 mar 2020

15/03/2020 – 3rd Sunday of Lent - Year A 

15/03/2020 – 3^rd Sunday of Lent - Year A 

Reading 1 EX 17,3-7 * Psalm 94 * Reading 2 ROM 5,1-2.5-8 * Gospel JN 4,5-42

We are thirsty for the Word of God, a deep desire, because we bet on it our entire life. While reading the Gospel that is given us today, it strikes us the comparison between men's thirst and that of Jesus’, that is to say between the desires fostered by men and the only one expressed by the Lord.

The woman from Samaria comes to get water, while Jesus’ disciples are hungry and go off to the city to provide food. Jesus was left near to this well, where from the city comes a woman in the hottest time of the day. Someone would expect Jesus to say to the woman, like the patriarch Jacob in a similar situation:  «Come, I will help you with the water!». But no, instead Jesus asks the woman for a favour, if she was going to give Him some water to drink. He manages not to let the woman feel inferior, to make her feel like she is valued, she is useful, to show her presence is appreciated, she who had been rejected many times by men. And while He enjoys the woman’s gesture of love, clenching His thirst with the water she offered Him, He talks about another water, a living water which refreshes the depths of the heart.

Since the woman does not understand what He is referring to, Jesus directs her to consider her deepest and never satisfied desires. She has the desire to love and to be loved, to build her life on a stable security, to look at the future with serenity, to enjoy harmony with everyone. These desires she has always hoped to fulfill by turning to men: she tried five times, but uselessly, on the contrary, she has always been disappointed, and now for the sixth time she is trying again, even without much conviction. “The one you have now is not your husband”, Jesus tells her, as to say that she herself is aware that men are bound to disappoint and it is not safe to trust them. The faith you have in them is always unstable, because their affection is not pure love, but it is mixed with a pride hard, difficult to please, even ferocious, which because of self-love generates suffering abandoning the other in the moment of need.

Hearing that Jesus understands her, the woman dares to show Him her faith too, incomplete and weak, asking for explanations: that man looks to her really trustworthy! Jesus therefore very willingly talks about that God who is not far from us, but so close as our breath is, that God who now finally can become known as Father, because His son is present, who can reveal Him to us! This Father has to be adored lovingly not on and off, but always, in every moment, in every place, from the depths of the loving heart. By revealing the Father Jesus reveals Himself too, and talking of Himself He reveals the beauty, the greatness and the loving presence of the Father!

And what does to adore God the Father mean? In order to find the answer to this question we can look at Jesus Himself: He is the one who knows how to “worship the Father in Spirit and truth”. He does this taking care of His kingdom, trying to discover and follow His will, He does this showing Himself as the Messiah and Saviour of the world! We too will adore the Father, and we will do it by loving Jesus, praying Him to stay with us to show us the way, to let us listen to His words. We adore the Father when we say what the Samaritans said to the woman who made herself missionary among them: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world”!

Our faith needs to mature to a point in which it will set us free from what others do or say, those who negate faith, or who do not live it, or who keep it only as a dress they change every change of season or even more often.

Saint Paul is strengthening us in the certainty that our relationship with God is played on our welcoming Jesus: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. Jesus is the rock which, hit by Moses, lets water flow for the whole thirsty and sinful people. Jesus is clenching our thirst with His presence in our heart, in our family, in our society. Without Him every search ends up being empty and disappointing. There are some who get tired of looking and they even take their own life. He who instead trusts in Jesus, rejoices and finds a reason, not only for living, but also for making an effort, offering himself and transforming his life in a continuous act of love and offering to the Father for the salvation of many.