First Reading Commentary
The people of Israel grumbled against Moses
enough for him to think that they might try to kill him. Scripture reads: “You shall not put the Lord
your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16). Jesus quoted this passage when He was being
tempted in the desert by the devil. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that tempting God wounds the respect
and trust we owe our Creator and Lord.
It always harbors doubt about His love, His providence and His power (cf. CCC
2119).
In this Reading, the people of Israel tempt
and challenge God to supply water for their thirst. Water is a symbol of life and every human
being needs water to sustain life. Water
is also used for cleansing. It is
fitting that water is used in baptism.
In the Sacrament of Baptism we are cleansed of our sins and are given a
new life as a child of God.
The rock in Horeb, according to Saint Paul,
is a figure of Christ: “All drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from
a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).
The words Massah and
Meribah mean “quarrel” and “test”. The people
ask, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”
That question never seems to go away.
It was asked thousands of years ago and it is still asked today, usually
when tragedy strikes. It is yet another
way of tempting God, trying to get Him to reveal Himself, although, depending
on the circumstances, it can be at times quite understandable in our lowly
humanity. During Lent, we do indeed ask
the Lord to reveal Himself but not in a way that would be considered tempting
God. Through prayer we seek Him longing
for intimacy and forgiveness, longing to quench a thirst that water cannot
suffice.
Second Reading Commentary
The apostle Paul proceeds in this Reading to
show how wonderful a benefit it is to be truly justified by the coming of Christ. Saint John Chrysostom adds that we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by laying aside all contentions; or let
us have peace with God by sinning no
more. And we can have this peace even during
our greatest trials, which, with our Lord’s help, can lead us to an increase in
virtue and patience.
God has showered us with the blessings of
faith, charity, patience, and fidelity even though we’re not deserving of
it. Knowing this, there must be the
greatest confidence that after this pledge and assurance of His good will
towards us, He will finish the work He has begun and bring us to His heavenly Kingdom.
Saint Paul writes: “The
love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has
been given to us.” Indeed, we are
temples of the Holy Spirit which means that the great Paraclete resides in our
soul, sanctifying it and making it a partaker of His divine love. Because of God’s love and mercy for His
people, Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for
the ungodly; meaning that we were sinners and consequently His enemy. Saint Paul continues: “Perhaps for a good
person one might even find courage to die”; that is to say, courage to die for
a person that has been good to us. As
Saint Jerome puts it, “Scarcely would anyone die for a just cause; for who
would ever think of dying for injustice?”
For however long our journey is in this life, chances are we will never
fully grasp how much God loves us.
Saint Augustine preached that the woman of
Samaria symbolizes the Church which was not yet justified, but was about to be
justified. Saint Augustine continues:
“She comes in ignorance, she finds Him, and He converses with her. We must see what this woman of Samaria was
and why she had come to draw water. The
Samaritans did not belong to the Jewish nation, but were foreigners. It is part of the symbolism that this woman,
who is a type of the Church, came from a foreign nation, because the Church was
to come from the Gentiles and so be of a different race. Because she provided a symbol, she became the
reality too. For she came to believe in
Jesus Who was putting her before us as a symbol. She was surprised that a Jew was quite
uncharacteristically requesting a drink from her. Although Jesus asked for a drink, His real
thirst was for this woman’s faith.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church shares
something beautiful about Jesus’ thirst: “The wonder of prayer is revealed
beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every
human being. It is He Who first seeks us
and asks for a drink. Jesus thirsts; His
asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the
encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God
thirsts that we may thirst for Him” (CCC 2560).
Continuing with Saint Augustine’s homily, he
says: “Jesus asks her for a drink. He is
in need as One Who will accept, He abounds as One Who will satisfy. Jesus said, ‘If you knew the gift of
God.’ God’s gift is the Holy Spirit but
He still speaks to her in a veiled language, and gradually He enters into her
heart. The water which He was about to
give to her is surely the water referred to in the words, ‘With You is the
fountain of life.’ Jesus was promising
her plentiful nourishment and the abundant fullness of the Holy Spirit. 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.’ Need drove her to this labor, while her
frailty recoiled from it. How wonderful
if she heard the invitation, ‘Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.’ That was what
Jesus’ words to her meant – an end to her labor; but she did not yet understand
their meaning.”
The Samaritan woman uses the term, “our
father Jacob” because the Samaritans claimed lineage from Abraham, therefore,
they called Jacob their father because he was Abraham’s grandson. Saint Bede explains that they also called
Jacob their father because they lived under the Law of Moses and were in
possession of the land that Jacob had bequeathed to his son Joseph.
When Jesus tells her to go call her husband, He begins to show her that He knows all
about her life. The Samaritan woman
says: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,” meaning Jacob and the ancient
patriarchs, whom the Samaritans called their fathers. The mountain is Gerizim, where the Samaritans had built a temple; and it was there that
the Samaritans would come to worship instead of at Jerusalem. The Samaritans believed that the patriarchs
had exercised their religious rituals on this mountain.
Jesus tells the woman that salvation is from the
Jews. Saint John Chrysostom explains the
meaning of our Savior’s words: “The Israelites, on account of their innumerable
sins, had been delivered by the Almighty into the hands of the king of Assyria,
who led them all away as captives into Babylon and sent other nations whom He
had collected from different parts, to inhabit Samaria. But the Almighty, to show to all nations that
He delivered up His people solely on account of their transgressions, sent
lions into the land to persecute these strangers. The Assyrian king upon hearing this, sent
them a priest to teach them the Law of God; but they did not depart wholly from
their impiety, for many of them returned again to their idols, while at the
same time worshipping the true God. It
was on this account that Christ preferred the Jews before them saying,
‘Salvation is from the Jews,’ whom it
was the chief principle to acknowledge the true God and hold every denomination
of idols in detestation. The Samaritans,
by mixing the worship of one with the other, plainly showed that they held the
God of the universe in no greater esteem than their idols.”
Jesus tells her: “The hour is coming, and is
now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.” The Catechism explains that worship in Spirit
and truth of the New Covenant is not tied exclusively to any one place. What matters above all is that, when the
faithful assemble in the same place, they are the living stones gathered to be
built into a spiritual house. For the
Body of the risen Christ is the spiritual temple from which the source of
living water springs forth: incorporated into Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are
the temple of the living God (cf. CCC 1179).
Jesus was not in any way suggesting that Christian worship should have
no use of external signs towards God, for that would take away all sacrifice,
sacraments and prayers.
The Samaritan woman tells Jesus: “I know that
the Messiah is coming, the One called the Christ; when He comes, He will tell
us everything.” Even the Samaritans, at
that time, expected the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus said to her, “I am He,” which
He proclaimed to the Samaritan woman, first by His words, but perhaps even more
by His grace, which would have convinced her heart that He was indeed the
Messiah. The disciples were amazed that He
was talking to her and experiencing this may have taught them something about
the humility of Jesus. The Samaritans
looked for the Messiah because they had the books of Moses, in which Jacob
foretold of the world’s Redeemer: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah or a
ruler from his thigh, till He that is to be sent comes” (Genesis 49:10).
Jesus tells His disciples to look up and see
the fields ripe for the harvest. The harvest
of souls was approaching when Christ came to teach the way of salvation and to
send His apostles to convert all nations.
“I sent you to reap what you have not worked for”; by these words Jesus testifies to His apostles that the prophets
had sown the seed in order to bring all to believe in Christ. This was the end of the Law, the fruit which
the prophets looked for to reward their labors.
Jesus, likewise, shows them that as it is He Himself Who sends the
apostles, it is also He Who sent the prophets before them, and that the Old and
New Testaments are of the same Origin.
Finally, through the grace of God, we see
that many of the Samaritans came to believe that Jesus was indeed the Messiah,
the Savior sent to redeem the world.
