evangeli.net

A team of 200 priests comment on daily Gospel

200 priests comment on daily Gospel

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Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Sunday 3rd (A) of Lent

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Gospel text (Jn 4,5-42): Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well is there. Tired from his journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her, «Give me a drink». His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food. The Samaritan woman said to him, «How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?» (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, «If you only knew the Gift of God! If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you yourself would have asked me and I would have given you living water» (…).

In that town many Samaritans believed in him when they heard the woman who declared, «He told me everything I did». So, when they came to him, they asked him to stay with them and Jesus stayed there two days. After that many more believed because of his own words (…).

The Samaritan woman. The Jesus’ weariness

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today we meditate the conversation with the Samaritan woman. The woman went every day to draw water from an ancient well, and on that day she found Jesus sitting beside the well, “wearied from his journey”.

St Augustine comments: “Not for nothing was Jesus tried. The strength of Christ created you, the weakness of Christ recreated you. With his strength he created us, with his weakness he came to seek us out”. Jesus’ weariness, a sign of his true humanity, can be seen as a prelude to the Passion. In the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, the topic of Christ’s “thirst” stands out in particular. It culminated in his cry on the Cross “I thirst”. This thirst, like his weariness, had a physical basis. Yet Jesus thirsted for the faith of that woman, as he thirsted for the faith of us all.

—God the Father sent him to quench our thirst for eternal life, giving us his love, but to give us this gift Jesus asks for our faith. The omnipotence of Love always respects human freedom.