Third Sunday in Lent A.   February 24, 2008   Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30.Exodus 17 3-7.  Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8. John 4: 5-42.

The man had been a faithful husband and a very dutiful father.  He worked long hours to provide for all the needs of his family and for most of their wants as well.  He had worked himself almost to the point of exhaustion even when his children were out of the house and the pressure was off.  When he was through paying for the education of his children he began to save for the future needs of his grandchildren, even the ones who were not yet born.   He was a worker, not a talker.  In fact he maintained that he was far too busy to waste time talking.  When he was in the last stages of cancer I asked him how he felt about his marriage and his family.  He talked for hours.  I was an outsider and a priest; talking to me was safe and easy.  I asked him if he had ever talked to his wife the way that he was talking to me.  He told me that they had never had time to talk much.  They had been married for almost fifty years and children and work always got in the way of talking – besides talking is a waste of time he told me.  I suggested that as long as he could no longer work and would be departing for heaven soon it might be a good time to talk to his wife about their long life together.  During the next couple of weeks they laughed together and cried together as they had never done before. After the funeral the wife told me that they had never been as close to one another as they were in the days before her husband’s death.  She said that they never cried because he was dying.  They cried and laughed because they had finally gotten to know one another and were able to express their love for one another before he died.  She said, “The last days were the best days. I wish that we had begun sharing our thoughts and feelings with one another earlier in our marriage.” 

The woman of Samaria also worked hard.  She had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband.  She had obviously been hurt many times over.  Work is a good way to hide for our fears and our pain.   She was working at the hottest time of the day – at noon - getting water from the town well to carry home on her head for the needs of her family.  By coming at high noon she was avoiding having to talk to anyone.  Most people took a nap at noon.  The Samaritan woman made a big grace-filled mistake.  She began talking to Jesus.  The conversation began very simply.  Jesus said, “Give me a drink.”  She said, “Why are you talking to me?  Jews don’t talk to Samaritans.”   Once the conversation began she lost control of it and she ended up talking about her thirst for living water and the pain of her unsuccessful marriages.  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst again.  The water I shall give will become in him or her a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”   The woman pleaded with Jesus, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” “Sir, give me what I am thirsty for in the depths of my heart so that I will not need to keep coming here at high noon to cover my deep pain and my thirst with the hard work of bringing water home – water that can not possibly satisfy me.”

Conversation is the doorway to the soul.  The Samaritan woman unlocked the depth of her soul to Jesus by talking to Jesus and letting him guide the conversation until it opened her mind and heart to the living water of God’s presence and God’s grace.  The answer to the Samaritan woman’s loneliness and pains was so simple that she was in grave danger of missing the very meaning of her life.  Work is not enough to satisfying us no matter how hard we work and how much we have.  Outward success is not enough to satisfy us no matter how successful and powerful we have become. And pain, and sin and failure can not destroy us as long as we are willing to open our minds and hearts to a deep and trusting conversation with Jesus and with the other people in our lives.

The man who was dying of cancer whom I spoke about earlier was a very good Catholic.  He went to Mass every Sunday.  He kept the commandments and led a good moral life.  He worked hard to care for his family.  Yet, he never felt very close to Jesus and his religion was more a matter of duty and obligation than it was a matter of personal faith.  He worked hard to do what Jesus wanted, but he never experienced Jesus as the living God, and as a brother and a friend.  Something very strange happened when this dying man opened his heart to a deep conversation with his wife.  He found himself sharing his mind and heart with Jesus and for the first time he experienced Jesus sharing his mind and heart with him.  The fact of the matter is that he had always done what is right.  He had even said all the right prayers, but he had never had a friend to friend conversation with Jesus for the same reason that he had never had a heart to heart conversation with his wife.  He was too busy.  He was afraid.  He didn’t know how.

On 9/11 the terrorists made one big mistake.  They forgot that people on the third plane had cell phones.  Several people on the doomed plane called home to talk to their spouse or family.  As far as we know no one called his broker.  No one called her business partner.  All those who reported receiving a call were family members.  The message of each of the desperate calls from the doomed plane was much the same:  “If I don’t make it out of here alive, I just want you to know that I love you and I love the kids.”   For some of those calling home it may have been the first time that they were so clear with themselves and with their families about what was most important in their lives.  Some of them probably had a better conversation with God than they had ever had before.

You Must Give Yourself to Love If Love Is What You're After;

Open Up Your Hearts to the Tears and Laughter

And Give Yourself to Love, Give Yourself to Love.

Conversation is the doorway to the soul.  When the Woman of Samaria opened herself to a deep conversation with Jesus she found herself as well.  Deep conversation with God in prayer and heart to heart conversations with those we love opens up springs of living water within us.  For the grace to take time to pray, to listen and to speak and for the grace of living water we give God thanks and praise.