March 15, 2020, 3rd Sunday of Lent
1st Reading: Ex 17:3–7
2nd Reading: Romans 5:1–2, 5–8 Gospel:
Jn 4:5–16, 19–26, 39–42
Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar… Tired from his journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the Gift of God! If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you yourself would have asked me and I would have given you living water.”
The woman answered, “Sir, you have no bucket and this well is deep; where is your living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well after he drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those who drink of the water that I shall give will never be thirsty; for the water that I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty and never have to come here to draw water.” The woman then said to him, “I see you are a prophet; tell me this: Our fathers used to come to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?”
Jesus said to her, “(…) But the hour is coming and is even now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshipers the Father wants. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah, that is the Christ, is coming; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I who am talking to you, I am he.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A story is told of a thirsty man in the desert spending his last ounce of strength to pump water out from an old pump. On a piece of paper nearby he read: “Under the big board there is a small bottle of water. If you drink any of it there won’t be enough to wet the washer and prime the pump.”
Had the man drunk the water, he’d still be dead in a while. His best option was pour the water to wet the washer and prime the pump. Poor man! He had no choice but put faith in a rusty pump. We would have been similarly situated had Jesus not come to offer us water of eternal life. But like the Samaritan woman we have to ask Jesus for this living water. Some may have to pump vigorously while others still need to come closer to the source. — (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., JD, DM.
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