History, Unashamed

Jesus answered and said to her, “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.” (Jn 4:13-14)

A reflection from Father Tudgay for the Third Sunday of Lent.

There are many aspects of Lent that are beautiful and fruitful. Perhaps we’ve experienced a renewal in our religious practices and disciplines. Perhaps we’ve deepened our prayer life. Perhaps our experience of fasting has led to greater simplicity in our lives, resulting in greater peace. This gets at the heart of the season. However, there are other aspects of Lent that may seem tedious. We give up things that we enjoy. Our schedules are determined more by discipline now, than previously, and we have to carve out time to remain faithful to the disciplines that we previously replaced with work or entertainment. However, the most difficult and tedious dimension of Lent is less about what we give up or take on, but is found in what we have to confront. See, we run the risk of idolizing the practices of this season as if they are an end in and of themselves. They’re meant to lead us to greater holiness and freedom in Christ. There is nothing more difficult or tedious, in my experience, than confronting the aspects of our lives that need to be changed, transformed, and healed. And our encounter with Jesus Christ accomplishes all of that! 

The foundational image that comes to us this weekend is the image and reality of human thirst. It applies in a variety of ways that are practical and metaphorical. I’m one of those people who always encourages others to stay hydrated! I try to drink a lot of water throughout the day. Thirst, however, is a reality that goes beyond the physical need for water and applies to the human will, to human desire and affection. Thirst is a reality that motivates us… the thirst for justice, for righteousness, for revenge, for change, for nostalgia, for love, for affection, for truth, for peace… Thirst is, perhaps, the most powerful reality in the human condition. 

The Gospel passage this weekend captures Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman while she was fetching some water to take back to the village. This woman had a past. She wasn’t perfect, like you and I. She encounters the Incarnate Word of the Father, by chance, who is experiencing legitimate human thirst. Her thirsts, one might say, is the thirst for love, for affection, for fulfillment… and her searches came up dry time after time. It’s only when her encounter with Christ wells up something within her – divine faith – that she realizes satisfies her deepest thirsts… a hydration that only an encounter with the living God can satiate. Christ’s physical thirst led him to this woman. His divine thirst, drawn from the Father’s thirst for sinners to return, be transformed, and live in his love, leads to her acceptance and forgiveness and her proclamation of her own salvation. 

It is critical that you and I pay attention to the dynamics of this encounter. Perhaps society or Jesus’ disciples or her community or her family profiled her because of her past. Perhaps her thirsts and her quests after them formed a reputation that she found impossible to overcome. Perhaps she believed, with regret or shame, that her identity was formed by following the wells of her past. Not with Christ. No, no… he simply names the past simply to draw her into a deeper understanding of the human search for love, and then in his very own person, reveals himself as the source of that love and fulfillment of every desire of every human heart. She goes back to her village where, presumably, everyone knew her and knew about her. Yet, because of her encounter with Christ, there was something completely different about her – her authenticity flowed from her experience of forgiveness. 

So, here we are! You and I, during this season, aren’t much different than the woman in this weekend’s Gospel. Perhaps our various thirsts have taken us in directions that have resulted in broken-heartedness, anger, or chaos. During this season, Jesus Christ enters into our story – the story that he already knows – and calls us to simply receive his merciful, reconciling love, and to proclaim that love by the way we live our lives. Our authenticity isn’t drawn from our perfection. Our authenticity is drawn from our encounter with the living God, whose love, accessible through Faith, satiates our heart. Drink Up!!!