This Week's Homily

We will be providing one or more of the homilies given at a Sunday Mass on this page each week. To see previous homilies, check out the Homily Archive page.

3rd Sunday of Lent        

Lent Gets Personal…Don’t Change the Subject

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

The woman who converses with Our Lord at the well was no ordinary woman. She was a Samaritan and Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans. Centuries before Christ, the Samaritans had intermarried with Assyrians and adopted many of their pagan practices. They built their own temple and rejected much of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Jews considered them half-breeds and heretics. In fact, the most offensive term that Jews could apply to anyone was to call them a Samaritan.

And yet, she and Jesus converse even though no Jewish man would permit himself to speak to a woman alone, much less a Samaritan. This woman goes to the well alone and at noon. Drawing well water was always a morning task and no woman would ever go alone. Most likely, this woman does this to avoid the scrutiny and the gossip of others, because she was divorced five times and was living with a man who was not her husband. She certainly would have been spurned and ridiculed by others. Still, Jesus breaks down cultural barriers to converse with this woman.

They speak about thirst and water. At first the focus is physical thirst. But Jesus takes the conversation to another level. There is another thirst in life and a water that satisfies.

Our Lord’s thirst is in fact, the salvation of the woman who is before him. He knows the state of her soul. She had come to draw water but he knew that her desire, her thirst was for more than a bucket of H2O. Her song about life might be that of Peggy Lee....”Is That All There Is?” She had made so many wrong choices. She had been hurt time and time again. She was searching for meaning, for happiness in all the wrong places.

At the well of Sychar, Jesus gets personal. He gets into her conscience, touches upon the most painful aspect of her life--her irregular living circumstances. How does she react when Our Lord points about this disturbing reality? She reacts as most of us do—she changes the subject. “Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about the temple and the true place to worship God.” But Jesus is not put off! He is patient and leads her to understand her situation and nurtures her long dormant faith. He satisfies her true thirst.

We who strive to live the faith must continually renew ourselves by getting into our consciences, removing any obstacles that prevent God’s living water—grace—to flow within us. It’s easy to “change the subject.”

Lent is about getting personal, allowing God to meddle in our life. We must have the courage to seek the path of change.

When we look at the crucifix as we should in Lent, we should be able to say, “This is truly the Savior of the world who thirsts for me, who desires to give me the water that will truly satisfy my thirst.” As we move along this Lent, let us allow him to get personal, to meddle. Let’s not change the subject but seriously take up challenges of the Gospel so that we can, like the Samaritan woman, speak of the marvels the Lord has done for us!