Third Sunday of Lent C.  March 11, 2007.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:3-, 6PM.  Exodus 17:3-7.  Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8. John 4: 5– 42.

The man was sure that he had done everything that he could to make his wife happy.  He worked long hours.  He provided a beautiful home.  He even gave her the gift of children.  Things seemed to be going smoothly until the last child moved out of the house.  In celebration of their 25^th wedding anniversary his wife asked for a divorce.  He was stunned, surprised and baffled.  In his mind he had given his wife everything that she could have wanted.  In the course of meeting with a divorce lawyer it became clear that there was one thing that he hadn’t given his wife for a long, long time.  He had not given his wife his heart.  He had not shared his thoughts and feeling with her for years. In fact they had not had a good conversation, just the two of them for a very long time.  They lived together.  They didn’t fight and argue often.  But they were not in communion with one another.  They shared everything except their minds and hearts.

Without regular communication, both through words and through the expression of feelings, relationships stop growing and eventually die. When Jesus met the woman of Samaria at the well he began a conversation with her and she responded.  A conversation that began with the very simple request of Jesus, “I want a drink” led to a much deeper conversation about her five marriages and her present living situation, and then to a discussion about religion. She said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ.”   With every turn in the conversation Jesus led the woman more deeply into her own wants and needs, and the dreams, pain and anxiety of her life.   A poor woman who was seeking no more than a bucket of water from the town well on a hot day, ended up going home convinced that she had met the Messiah and that the water she was looking for was not in the well.  She was looking for water that would refresh and renew her heart.  Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Communion is the central teaching and mystery of our Catholic Faith.  Communion is the intimate relationship of total love and sharing that exists among the Persons of the Trinity.  Communion is the gift that Jesus re-established with the human race by his death on the Cross.  Communion is the gift that we receive and enter into in the Eucharist.   Communion is not only the Body and Blood of Jesus that we receive in the Eucharist: it is also the intimate sharing of our lives with the living person of Jesus Christ.  My sense is that we sometimes rush out of Mass after having received communion almost as if Jesus were a “thing” that we had received. People who talk to things are regarded as a bit strange.  On the other hand, people who treat a living person like a thing are also missing the best part of a person to person relationship.  Communion is a person to person relationship.  We enter into communion with Jesus by entering into conversation with him and by sharing our minds and hearts with him.  The reception of Communion is the entry of a living person into our lives.  Taking time after communion is essential to deepening our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.  The daily conversation of prayer is essential to deepening our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.   Eucharist Adoration is an excellent way to give time to our person to person relationship with the Lord.

Jesus promises to make a living spring of life-giving water spring up within those who enter into conversation with him.  Recently I heard it said that an empty barrel makes the most noise.   When we find ourselves angry, annoyed, resentful, gossipy and discontent, it may be because our barrel is empty.  Anyone who beats on a barrel that is filled to the brim finds that it makes very little sound.  An empty barrel is a  harsh and noisy drum.   If we find ourselves harsh, discontent and noisy it may be because our barrel is empty.  The secret to peace and joy is the quality of what we put into the barrel through intimate conversation with Jesus and with one another.   Jesus wants to full us with streams of life-giving water. The quality of our conversation and our communion with him changes the noisy barrel of our lives into love and joy.

I learned a long time ago that when people are loud, angry, upset, discontented and abusive it may have nothing at all to do with you or with me.   It may well be about the empty barrel of their own lives.  No matter how many things they have or how successful they may be, the empty barrel of empty hearts produces a lot of noise.  The way to inner peace and joy is the way of intimate communion with self, with God, and with other people.

Even on the Cross Jesus was deeply in communion and at peace with himself, with God and with our sinful human race.  In today’s second reading St. Paul tells the Romans, “For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly ... God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

Even on the Cross Jesus is filled with peace and joy.  Perfect communion was his secret.  Perfect communion is the gift that Jesus came to give us as his remedy for the distress of a very noisy and unhappy world.   For the gift of communion we give God thanks and praise