Repent and Receive the Gifts of God

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us repent of our sins and selfishness so as to be thirsty for the gifts of God.

The praying assembly is invited this Sunday to learn the truth and challenge of God’s word through two men and a rather unusual woman. Moses, in today’s 1st reading from the book of Exodus (17:3-7) is represented as frustrated with the incessant and ungrateful grumbling of the Israelites. His annoyance is clearly evident as he relays their complaint to God, yet God responds with patience, providing a supply of water from the rock to the thirsty wanderers. The gift of water in an otherwise waterless desert became a sign of God’s perpetual presence in their midst.

Paul, in his Roman correspondence (Rom 5:1-2,5-8), will speak not specifically of water but of the love of God being poured out to quench the needs and the thirsts of sinners. Paul understood that sinners who accept to be washed in the baptismal bath of Jesus’ dying and rising could appropriate all Jesus accomplished through his saving death.

In today’s Gospel (Jn 4:5-42) Jesus gives us a Samaritan woman with a questionable past as our teacher. Through her encounter with Jesus, she will be given to drink the water of life; through her, Jesus will teach each of us to similarly satisfy all our thirsts in him. The woman, unnamed by John the evangelist, belonged to an ethnic and religious group rejected by the larger and more powerful religious establishment. Jesus regarded Samaritans as little more than gentiles. It is interesting to note that Jesus chose someone whom the rest of society held to be of no account to teach his disciples how to be disciples.

With Jesus, she looked at her life and she allowed him to point out those places in her heart that needed to be filled with God’s gift of living water. Thirsty for the gifts he offered, she welcomed him into her life. Then with the grateful elatedness that comes to those who know themselves to be fully forgiven, she ran to tell others of her experiences. In this, she stands out as our teacher and Lenten guide. With her, we are called to repent of our sins and selfishness so as to be thirsty for the gifts of God that come to us in Jesus. With her, we are to allow those gifts to change us from within so as to be more authentic witnesses to the presence of God in our lives, in our world.