Our thirsty souls

Third Sunday of Lent (A)
27 March 2011
St. Hilary’s, Chicago

http://www.usccb.org/nab/032711.shtml


“In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses.” I’m sure most of us have experienced a person or group of people, perhaps even seen in ourselves, how things as basic as hunger and thirst can drastically change a person’s demeanor or attitude. I think also of college dining halls and, dare I say, family kitchens where children complain about the food “always being the same” and how little they like it. Things as basic as hunger and thirst can change the way we interact with others precisely because of how much we need food and water to survive. The people were so desperate – so needy that they remembered slavery in Egypt fondly and forgot their miraculous rescue when God separated the Red Sea.

Water is essential to life – one of our most basic needs. Consequently, we are always seeking water, going out looking for it, and drinking it whenever we can. We don’t think about it much because it is so available and our search usually ends at the nearest faucet. In the ancient world, they would go to the town well.

This is where a woman of Sychar finds a man waiting for her. Jesus is thirsty, and asks her for a drink. But, soon we discover another truth – ordinary water does not fulfill us. We are not satiated by the water we drink. We must always come back for more. We must keep asking for water as we dine out. We must keep finding faucets and filling our glasses. But, Jesus promises “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman is attracted to this. She has been alienated from her community. While it is hot and everyone is in town having lunch, she is coming out to do the laborious task of fetching water by herself. Her life has gotten to the point where she doesn’t want to be seen by anyone. She is ashamed of what she has become.

Jesus sees this. This is why she is fetching water at noon. And, Jesus knows why she is so ashamed. She has been married five times, and has given up on marriage and is now living with a man. She is seeking something in these relationships that she is not finding. She is looking for the perfect relationship, the perfect man who will fulfill every one of her needs. And, she cannot find him. In a spiritual sense, she is thirsty for what will fulfill.

How many of us are like the woman at the well – looking for the perfect relationship, the one that will fulfill all our needs? How many of us expect too much out of our friendships, our marriages, our family, even our priests? No human is perfect, and no one human person will ever fulfill all our needs, our desires, our hope.

In truth, there is only one who can satisfy our thirst for this water. There is only one in whom we find our hope, and he is the man we found sitting at the well when we weren’t expecting him, calling us to come to him and ask him for living water. He is the one we first encountered sacramentally here at the fount of Baptism. He is the one whom our hearts have been desiring, longing, crying for all our lives, since our very creation. He is the one whom the people of Israel following Moses were really looking for when they were thirsty, and he gave them water from the rock. He is the one the prophets and patriarchs longed for. He is the one whom all peoples truly need. He is our God, who came to satisfy our thirst with the waters of Baptism and our hunger by offering his body and blood on the Cross. And, as the Samaritan woman was uniquely blessed to be told directly – He is the Christ.

“The woman left her water jar.” What an amazing change! She is no longer thirsty, for her true thirst has been fulfilled. She is so full of water – of life! – that she runs into town to share what she has received with everyone she can find. The thirsty woman, who avoided everyone, has now herself become a spring of living water through which everyone in the town would follow back to its source. Then, they too could have their thirst satisfied and say “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.”

In our tradition, we have the story of this woman who sought fulfillment in every possible way before discovering Christ. But, she is not alone. Countless men and women throughout the centuries have sought every worldly advice and pleasure seeking happiness and fulfillment, only to discover that our only true hope is in Christ. In a most beautiful passage summarizing his life’s journey, Saint Augustine says,

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

Lent teaches us that nothing created will ever satisfy us. That is why the Church proposes for us the discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Prayer focuses us back on God – we listen for him; we talk to him, because he is the fountain of life. Fasting disciplines us to know that ultimately, more that food or water, we need Christ. Almsgiving teaches us that the gifts we have been given by God are meant to be shared out of love for one another, that these gifts may lead others back to God.

This week, let us pray – truly pray. Let us allow God to fill us today at this Mass. Let us discipline ourselves through fasting, submitting our own desires – bodily or otherwise – to the one desire which is more important than all the others – our need for God. Then, as we continue in true perfection, as we let ourselves be fulfilled, we can find a way to do something good for God, so that through the love of God flowing from the fountain of our hearts, others too may come to know the beauty, the joy, the hope that we have in Jesus Christ our Lord.