3rd Sunday of Lent

The Pentateuch The Water from the Rock (17:1–7)

The sons of Israel’s faith in God and Moses has been strengthening little by little; but they often doubt whether God is there at all (v. 7). They begin to murmur and to seek proofs of his presence: have they been brought out of Egypt to die, or to attain salvation? The water which Moses causes to come out of the rock is a further sign to bolster their faith.

Theme:

thirst

in the desert

springs of water coming out of a rock

in the psalm

Holy Spirit poured out into our hearts in Romans

Jesus and the woman at the well

he desires to satisfy her thirst more than simply physical thirst

springs of water welling up to eternal life

Exodus 17

ENTRANCE PROCESSION-

meaning of Meribah and Massah

Moses in other scriptures doubted God’s power

(Sunday & Monday) = servers, MC, deacon, celebrant ...etc (fix order)

(Tuesday) = 4th degree KC’s, servers, MC, deacons, priests

The Pentateuch The Water from the Rock (17:1–7)

This episode names two places—Meribah, which in popular etymology means “contention”, “dispute”, “lawsuit”, and Massah, which is “proof”, “test”, “temptation”. Many biblical passages recall this sin (cf. Deut 6:16; 9:22–24; 33:8; Ps 95:8–9), even adding that Moses himself lacked faith and struck the rock twice (cf. Num 20:1–13; Deut 32:51; Ps 106:32). Lack of trust in the goodness and power of God means tempting God and it is a grave sin against faith—even more so in the case of Moses, who had experienced God’s special love and who ought to have given good example. When man meets some contradiction or some difficulty he cannot immediately solve, his faith may waver but he should never doubt, because “if deliberately cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual blindness” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2008).

EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION -

image relating to Baptism

EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION PATH - (Main - Back - St. J. - BVM - Back - Main)

The Pentateuch The Water from the Rock (17:1–7)

the Fathers said this episode prefigures the wonderful effects of Baptism: “See the mystery: ‘Moses’ is the Prophet; the rod is the word of God; the priest touches the rock with the word of God, and water flows, and the people of God drink” (St Ambrose, De sacramentis, 8, 5, 1, 3).

ORDER - 1. Basilica Bell 2. 4th Degree KC's 3. Basilica Umbrella 4. Incense

5. Cross Bearer 6. Candle Bearers 7. Torch Bearers 8. Deacons 9. Priests

12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you did not have confidence in me, to acknowledge my holiness before the Israelites, therefore you shall not lead this assembly into the land I have given them.

New American Bible, Revised Edition. (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011), .

10. Priest bearing the Blessed Sacrament

they asked if God was in their midst.. we know that God dwells within us after we are Baptized.. connection with Romans.. love of God poured into our hearts

RECESSIONAL

Psalm 95 NABRE

Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; cry out to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with a song of praise, joyfully sing out our psalms. For the Lord is the great God, the great king over all gods, Whose hand holds the depths of the earth; who owns the tops of the mountains. The sea and dry land belong to God, who made them, formed them by hand. Enter, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. For he is our God, we are the people he shepherds, the sheep in his hands. Oh, that today you would hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works. Forty years I loathed that generation; I said: “This people’s heart goes astray; they do not know my ways.” Therefore I swore in my anger: “They shall never enter my rest.”

(Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) = no recessional. After Holy God = Father will make a few remarks.

Psalm 95

if today you hear his voice.. harden not your hearts

invitatory psalm that priests, religious, etc pray every morning

:

hope

Holy Spirit poured into our hearts

in Baptism

indwelling of the Holy Spirit given to us

outpouring of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost

John

John 4 NABRE

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, just his disciples), he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 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.) 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.” 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” 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.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 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.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” 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?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. 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. The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 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.” 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.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 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.” After the two days, he left there for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While he was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.

notes on the Gospel:

living water = the water of life

explain the contention between Samaritans and the Jews briefly?

Saint John’s Gospel Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–45)

There were two normal routes for going from Judea to Galilee. The shorter one went through the city of Samaria; the other, which followed the Jordan, was longer. Jesus took the Samaria route, perhaps not just because it was shorter and busier but also to have a chance of preaching to the Samaritans

Saint John’s Gospel Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–45)

It is a touching sight to see our Master so exhausted. He is hungry too—his disciples have gone to a neighbouring village to look for food. And he is thirsty […].

Saint John’s Gospel Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–45)

Whenever we get tired—in our work, in our studies, in our apostolic endeavours—when our horizon is darkened by lowering clouds, then let us turn our eyes to Jesus, to Jesus who is so good, and who also gets tired; to Jesus who is hungry and suffers thirst

Saint John’s Gospel Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–45)

Jesus makes this request not just to slake his physical thirst but because his love made him thirst for the salvation of all men. When nailed to the cross he again said: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28)

Saint John’s Gospel Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–45)

that water is absolutely necessary for human life; similarly, the grace of Christ is absolutely necessary for supernatural life. The water which can truly quench man’s thirst does not come from this or any other well: it is Christ’s grace, the “living water” which provides eternal life.

stage 1: her response shows that she is open

stage 1: her response shows that she is open

stage 2:

explain why it was problematic that he was speaking with a woman?

The woman left her water jar and went into the town and told the people: come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?

“I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest”

imperative for evangelization.. missionary

they came to know him because they saw him for themselves

Main ideas:

Jesus thirsts for you and all souls and wants to satisfy your thirst. Once he has satisfied your thirst, he wants you to share the living water of the Holy Spirit with others as the Samaritan woman did

do I thirst for God as he thirsts for me? Do I want more of the Holy Spirit?

set a fire down in my soul that I can’t control, I want more of you God.. I want more of you God

Main ideas:

let’s cling to God and place all of our hope in him

we have peace because we are justified through faith

boast in hope of the glory of God

we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, 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

What can separate us from the love of Christ?

New American Bible: Revised Edition Chapter 3

17 For though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit appears on the vine,

Though the yield of the olive fails

and the terraces produce no nourishment,

Though the flocks disappear from the fold

and there is no herd in the stalls,

18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD

and exult in my saving God.

19 GOD, my Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet swift as those of deer

and enables me to tread upon the heights.e

For the leader; with stringed instruments.

New American Bible: Revised Edition Chapter 8

God’s Indomitable Love in Christ. 28 We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? 33 Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. 34 Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we are being slain all the day;

we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.