FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
My Dear Parishioners
Most of us know the Gospel story of the woman at the well (Jn 4:1-42). Jesus and His disciples, traveling to Galilee, took the harder route through, not around, Samaria—a land and a people despised by the Jews. This choice aligns with Jesus’ mission: to reach those in need of healing no matter the difficulty. Jesus awaits His disciples at Jacob’s well when the Samaritan woman arrives alone at midday, hoping to avoid others.
Jesus asks her for a drink, sparking a conversation about “living water.” She initially thinks of fresh, flowing water— superior to stagnant well water—but Jesus speaks of something greater: eternal life. He reveals His knowledge of her five husbands and the man she now lives with, leading her to recognize Him as the Messiah. She leaves the well and runs to tell the villagers, who also encounter Jesus and are converted. She and her people have found the One who can quench their spiritual thirst.
It is the woman many of us identify with. She is nameless to all except Jesus. Her past is filled with pain and instability; repeated failures; she is vulnerable, living on the margins. She arrives expecting anonymity but meets the One who truly knows her. She thirsts for connection and belonging. Her community knew about her but did not truly know her, leaving her as isolated as the desert around her.
When Jesus asks her for a drink and offers her living water; He invites relationship, extending mercy not condemnation. He is more concerned with her “what might be” than her “what has been,” the road ahead not the dust behind. After encountering Jesus, she leaves her water jar behind; her interior well now filled with the living water of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. Like her, we all have a past, a history; some with painful, shameful moments; not all pretty or pleasant. Are we hiding some part of ourselves, fearful of being discovered, our worst “whatever” becoming known; being judged and condemned?
We, too, thirst for meaning, fulfillment and healing, yet we often return to the same stagnant wells: consumerism, attachment, fear, ego, scapegoating; these and other obstacles to satisfying our thirst. Do we keep drinking the same bad water somehow hoping not to get sick? Do we recognize that only through Jesus—His Church and the Eucharist— can we receive the living water that quenches our thirst for eternal life?
As one commentator put it, we must drink deeply of Jesus until we become the one we have drunk.
Paraphrasing Robert Frost, Jesus took the road less traveled to reach the Samaritan woman, to quench her spiritual thirst, and continued on that hard road all the way to Calvary—and that has made all the difference. Some people know the difficulty required to find & drink better water. Like them and the Samaritan woman, we must choose the other road, leave behind our old water jars and drink deeply of the living water, Jesus’ very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.
Peace,
Fr. Monteleone
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