Third Sunday of Lent Year A 2023

Title

Never Thirst Again

Outline

People are thirsty, but for the wrong things

We want physical health or material goods or honor and respect or physical/emotional security and so forth. We are willing to do all sorts of things, often evil things, to get them.

But even in our bentness, God is offering us what our inner self is wishing

Take Israel in the wilderness

They are not calling out to God in trust: “Lord, you saved us from Egypt, but we are facing death here. How are you going to solve this problem, for we know that you will? And then we will know you better and honor you more fully.”

No, they blame Moses, reflect on Egypt as good, and never mention the Lord. It is as Paul says, “While we were still sinners” - right in the middle of sin - Christ died for us.

God meets them “standing on the rock” in Horeb and that rock is struck with the rod of deliverance. And, Paul says elsewhere, “that rock (which seems to follow them) was Christ.” And it is out of the struck rock that water of life flows, not from a normal well dug by hand.

This, of course, is why when Moses strikes “the rock” a second time when he is supposed to speak to it, he is banned from Palestine, for Christ suffered once and baptism is once. Moses was supposed to speak and call upon that which had happened. There was already peace with God.

Yet we continue to quarrel with God. Why? Because we are seeking the wrong “water,” the wrong thing to quench our thirst.

So, briefly, we come to Jesus

He meets a woman, a woman who was certainly thirsty, for she was taboo - we do not know that she was a sinner, but she had lost 5 husbands for some reason so that the man she was serving would not touch her.

Jesus spends most of the conversation awakening her real, deeper thirst: “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.” Notice that this leads to the revelation of her deepest pain, the discussion of proper religion (with its racial implications), culminating in “the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.” And then the one clear self-revelation of Jesus as the Messiah.

The woman’s deepest longings are filled and she finds her place in the town as an evangelist. And Jesus reveals his own inner “filling:” “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” What is it? “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.”

He did not want Messianic acclaim, but he did want to gather into one the scattered people of God everywhere, even Samaritans. And they came and were satisfied.

Sisters, we can find ourselves thirsting for the wrong thing

We can think of life before we found our vocation, we can think of how life in our vocation could be better in this world’s terms, we can thirst for physical health.

Get your eyes back on the rock, remembering in gratitude what he has done for you, and ask for more of his water.

Realize that his refreshment will be found in right worship and embracing those who are different as they come to that worship. That is the will of the Father; that is food and drink for you and me.

It may be that Jesus will provide for some of these other things that we thirst for - including health or an allergy free day - and it may be he will find it wiser for us to find him in our deprivation. In either case, it is not the real water we are longing for - that is him and deeper worship. These other things are passing snacks or a partial mouthful so we can sing better. I am thankful for them, but what I long for is Jesus.

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings 3-12-2023: Third Sunday of Lent

FIRST READING

Exodus 17:3–7

3 Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why then did you bring us up out of Egypt? To have us die of thirst with our children and our livestock?” 4 So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!” 5 The LORD answered Moses: Go on ahead of the people, and take along with you some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the Nile. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. Moses did this, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”

Catholic Daily Readings 3-12-2023: Third Sunday of Lent

RESPONSE

Psalm 95:8

8 Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,

as on the day of Massah in the desert.

PSALM

Psalm 95:1–2, 6–9

1 Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;

cry out to the rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before him with a song of praise,

joyfully sing out our psalms.

6 Enter, let us bow down in worship;

let us kneel before the LORD who made us.

7 For he is our God,

we are the people he shepherds,

the sheep in his hands.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:

8 Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,

as on the day of Massah in the desert.

9 There your ancestors tested me;

they tried me though they had seen my works.

Catholic Daily Readings 3-12-2023: Third Sunday of Lent

SECOND READING

Romans 5:1–2, 5–8

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.

5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Catholic Daily Readings 3-12-2023: Third Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

John 4:42, 15

42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

GOSPEL

Option A

John 4:5–42

5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered and 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.” 11 [The woman] said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17 The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ 18 For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

27 At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, 29 “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30 They went out of the town and came to him. 31 Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”

39 Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” 40 When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

Notes

Catholic Daily Readings 3-12-2023: Third Sunday of Lent

SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2023 | LENT

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

YEAR A | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY

First Reading Exodus 17:3–7

Response Psalm 95:8

Psalm Psalm 95:1–2, 6–9

Second Reading Romans 5:1–2, 5–8

Gospel Acclamation John 4:42, 15

Gospel John 4:5–42 or John 4:5–15, 19b–26, 39a, 40–42

VIOLET