Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/022408.shtml

One of the more difficult things to see in this Gospel is the forgiveness of sins. Jesus, in eliciting faith from the Samaritan woman, asks her to call her husband and to bring him to the well, which of course, the woman is unable to do, since she does not have a legitimate husband. Did Jesus ask the Samaritan woman this question to embarrass her? Of course not. He asked her this question to let her know that He knew her at her weakest point, and yet loved her enough to visit with her and to point her to the waters of everlasting life. Jesus asked the woman about the very thing that She would likely wanted to have kept hidden from him, not to humiliate her, but to elicit her faith. As he does for each one of us by being nailed to the cross because of our offenses, so in this story Jesus puts himself into the hands of this sinful woman by first asking her for a drink.
The water Jesus points us to today is the water of baptism, the water that cleanses us from the sins that lead to lasting death. It is this water that the catechumens of our Church are thirsting for, and as they receive the first scrutiny of the Church on this third Sunday of Lent, it is time for us to ask the question as well – are we truly thirsting for the water that Jesus makes holy? Through our prayer, fasting and almsgiving, do we desire more than the waters of health and prosperity given through Jacob’s well? Are we content with the food that we must eat over and over, or do we hunger for something deeper, more permanent. Do we hunger and thirst for the invisible food that is the will of our heavenly Father? Do we really yearn for the resurrected life of Jesus more than the life this world offers? Are we looking forward to renewing our baptismal promises on Easter Sunday, and being sprinkled with the water that wells up to eternal life?
Just as last week the Transfiguration foreshadowed for Peter, James and John the glory of the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter, so today’s Gospel about life-giving water foreshadows the new life the Church will receive through its catechumens who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil. It foreshadows as well that the fruit of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lent will be a thirst on our part for the water that this world cannot give, the water of our baptism. When we renew our baptismal promises on Easter Sunday, we say that our thirst for the water that Jesus will give is greater than any other thirst we could experience in this lifetime. And so the sprinkling rite on Easter Sunday is a most dramatic event for us, the high point of being a Christian. For through those baptismal waters we are reborn from being children of this world only to being made the everlasting children of our Father in heaven.
Remember, my dear friends, that our prayer, fasting and almsgiving are a means, and not the end. They are to bring us perhaps, most of all, to a realization of our sins, and to a sincere repentance. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are to break down our pride, which blinds us from our sins and keeps us self-satisfied and incapable of making a good confession. A good Lent is marked by a tremendous thirst for the Lord’s mercy, and our prayer, fasting and almsgiving should lead to perhaps our most fruitful confession of the year, as we approach the Lord with sincere contrition. We know that he will love us just as he loved the Samaritan woman, and place himself into our hands, for Jesus does not desire the death of us sinners, but that we might be converted to Him, the source of the water that wells up to everlasting life!