Word to the Wise
Sunday, March 12, 2023 - 3rd Sunday of Lent - A
[Exod 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42 or 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42,40]"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 cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern 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." [John]
"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink....." is a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It refers to a situation where one is surrounded by a benefit that we cannot take advantage of! In the Gospel According to John, the figures of Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman and the crippled beggar in chapters 3, 4 and 5 are all "surrounded" by water that in the beginning of their encounters with Jesus they cannot drink. Jesus points out the way to living water to each of them. In the case of the Samaritan woman in today's gospel scripture, the dialogue proceeds step by step. The woman is focusing on the physical water in the well. Jesus is pointing to a different kind of water. Eventually, when confronted with Jesus' knowledge of her life, she realizes who he is and comes to faith. She then proclaims it to the village and they come to faith.
We Catholics love our "holy water!" But, I think we may be in the position of the Ancient Mariner in some ways. We are "surrounded" by our use of holy water but miss a lot of its significance. The significance is considerable because the water represents the "living water" of Christ! When we enter a Catholic church (and sometimes a "Catholic home") we see a receptacle of water and touch it and make the sign of the cross. It's almost a habit. But the water is there to remind us of our baptism! I ask the congregation at a parish mission if, when making the sign of the cross with the holy water do they say the words of that gesture? The reason is that we are baptized with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!!! Both words and water are necessary!!! Our baptism surrounds us with the living water of Christ.
Those (catechumens) who are participating in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adult (OCIA) in churches around the world are proceeding step by step to the "living water" which they will receive at the Easter Vigil. They are realizing the "gift of God," In Lent, we can profit from their example and realize that we are indeed surrounded by the water of eternal life and we have only to drink of it. AMEN