![\"Jacob's](\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/well_banner.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s gospel is a story of baptism,
\nand what baptism does for each of us.
\nIt\u2019s a story of thirst and water, of longing and desire.
\nIt\u2019s part one of a baptismal trilogy that continues next week and the week after.
\nThree lessons about baptism, with three images:
\nthis week water,
\nnext week light,
\nand the following week rising from the dead.<\/p>\n
But it all begins with being thirsty.<\/p>\n
Within each one of us is a deep yearning,
\nwhat St. Augustine calls a restlessness,
\nwhat some spiritual writers call a \u201choly longing.\u201d
\nSomething eats at our hearts,
\na feeling of something missing, of being incomplete,
\na desire for something just beyond our vision.<\/p>\n
A thirst.<\/p>\n
The Samaritan woman in today\u2019s gospel comes to the well thirsty.
\nEach day she picks up her water jar,
\nwalks half a mile from her home in Sychar to Jacob\u2019s well,
\nand returns home with the jar full of water.
\nDay after day.
\nNo matter how often she comes to the well,
\nshe is still thirsty the next day, and has to go to the well again.<\/p>\n
But as is often the case in John\u2019s gospel,
\nthere are two levels of meaning here.<\/p>\n
Not only is the Samaritan woman physically thirsty,
\nbut she\u2019s also spiritually thirsty.
\nWe find out she\u2019s been married five times,
\nand the man she is living with now is not her husband.
\nIn other words, she can\u2019t seem to stay settled down.
\nHer life is uneasy and unsettled.<\/p>\n
She goes from husband to husband,
\ntrying to ease her restlessness,
\ntrying to satisfy her longings,
\ntrying to quench her thirst.
\nBut no matter how many relationships she\u2019s been in,
\nshe still feels the restlessness, the longing.
\nShe is still thirsty.<\/p>\n
And then one day she carries her jar to the well,
\nand Jesus is there.<\/p>\n
Jesus knows she\u2019s a Samaritan,
\nhe knows all about her five husbands,
\nand still he offers her Living Water.
\n\u201cEveryone who drinks this water will never be thirsty again.\u201d
\n\u201cThe water I shall give will become in them a spring of water
\nwelling up to eternal life.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is what she\u2019s been longing for.
\nThis is what we long for.
\nHer story is our story.<\/p>\n
We spend our lives
\ntrying to quench our thirst
\nby going after mirages in the desert\u2014
\nmoney, success, pleasure\u2014
\nbut it is never enough.
\nEven when we throw ourselves into service,
\nhelping those in need,
\ntaking care of our families,
\nwe still feel restless and unsettled.
\nLike the Samaritan woman,
\nwe still thirst.<\/p>\n
Why is that?
\nTheologian Karl Rahner puts it this way:
\n\u201cGod loves us so much, he creates in us a desire that only he can fill.\u201d
\nOr in the words of St. Augustine,
\n\u201cOur hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, no single human experience can leave us fully satisfied.
\nOnly the infinite mystery of God\u2019s Love can satisfy the longing,
\nthe restlessness, the thirst in our hearts.
\nThis is the Living Water that Christ offers to the Samaritan woman,
\nthe same water each of us received at our baptisms.<\/p>\n
This is the Living Water that catechumens are preparing to receive
\nwhen they are baptized at the Easter Vigil.<\/p>\n
This weekend, all over the world,
\ncatechumens gather in their parishes for what is called the First Scrutiny.<\/p>\n
The Scrutinies,
\nwhich take place on the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent,
\nare not tests for the catechumens to pass.
\nThe catechumens here at St. Peter Parish
\nwill not come forward and stand before the altar
\nso that we can scrutinize them,
\nbut so that they can scrutinize themselves.
\nThe Scrutinies are moments of self-searching and repentance
\nfor the catechumens
\nas they draw closer to their baptism.<\/p>\n
When they come forward at the 10:30 Mass
\nwe will pray over them with the following words:
\n\u201cGrant that these catechumens,
\nwho, like the woman of Samaria, thirst for living water,
\nmay turn to the Lord as they hear his word
\nand acknowledge the sins and weaknesses that weigh them down.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re going to pray that in their thirst they turn to the Lord.<\/p>\n
Like the Samaritan woman,
\nlike us,
\nthe catechumens have a holy longing, a sacred thirst.<\/p>\n
That thirst has brought them here to receive the Living Water of baptism.
\nThey have come to understand
\nthat only God can satisfy the desire of their hearts.<\/p>\n
And for those of us who have already been baptized,
\nthe story of the Samaritan woman reminds us to scrutinize our lives too.
\nWe, too, are to turn to the Lord in our thirst,
\nto acknowledge the sins and weaknesses that weigh us down.<\/p>\n
The gospel story of the woman at the well
\ninvites us to think about all the things we thirst for,
\nall the desires deep within us,
\nall the things we long for in life\u2014
\nin our personal life, in our professional life, in our spiritual life\u2014
\nand to think of the different ways
\nwe have tried to satisfy the those thirsts.<\/p>\n
The gospel invites to remember times we went after things
\nwe thought would quench our thirst,
\nbut turned out to be only mirages in the end,
\nillusions in the desert,
\nand to think of times when we have been deeply satisfied,
\nwhen we have felt the grace of God like a flowing river.<\/p>\n
We, also, are to use this story of the woman at the well
\nfor self-reflection and repentance.<\/p>\n
But for the baptized, there is another side to this baptismal story,
\nbecause we are told that Jesus is also thirsty.
\nHe asks the woman for a drink of water.
\nAnd just as there is another level to the woman\u2019s thirst,
\nso there is another level to Jesus\u2019 thirst.
\nJesus thirsts for the woman to have faith.<\/p>\n
Jesus yearns to give everyone the water that will become in them
\na spring of water welling up to eternal life.<\/p>\n
We who have been baptized into Christ
\nare to have that same thirst, that same yearning,
\nto bring Living Water to a world that is dying of thirst.<\/p>\n
We are the rock in Horeb that Moses struck with his staff.
\nFrom out of us, who have been struck in baptism,
\nwater is to flow for the people around us to drink.
\nSt. Paul tells us today that
\n\u201cthe love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
\nwho has been given to us.\u201d
\nIt is that love that we are to pour out for others.<\/p>\n
Just as Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well,
\nwe encounter people each day
\nwho are thirsty,
\npeople who have been trying to calm their restlessness in all sorts of ways,
\nbut who can only be satisfied by the Living Water of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
It is our calling as Christians, as members of the Body of Christ,
\nto show others the same mercy Jesus showed to the woman at the well,
\nand to offer the gift of God\u2019s love to all,
\nno matter who they are or what their life to this point has been like,
\nwhether they\u2019ve had five husbands or fifty.<\/p>\n
For there is nothing that satisfies
\nlike a drink of the cool, clear water of God\u2019s love and mercy.
\nThis is the water of baptism.
\nThis is what the catechumens are preparing to receive.
\nThis is what the world thirsts for,
\nand this is what satisfies our deepest longings
\nand quenches our eternal thirst.<\/p>\n