Our Lord was tired from his journey, St. John tells us, and he sat down at the well,
and there he waited. He didn't get himself a drink. He waited at the well until the woman
came, and when she came, he said to her, give me a drink. It's very much like the whole
of our spiritual journey. Our Lord is on that journey with us. He has gone the distance
to make sure that we get to where we're destined to be in heaven, and he waits, and he is thirsty.
That's the great paradox, is that he is God and needs nothing and can never be diminished
in any way by anything anybody does, and yet, out of his goodness and generosity,
out of the superabundance of his bounty, he, in a sense, makes himself vulnerable.
He desires our love, and he is thirsty for it. On the cross he says, I am thirsty,
and Blessed Teresa, who was filled with God's love, made our Lord's thirst on the cross
of Christ.
And he made all of this momentous effort in order to makeity. I'm not going to take your
continual meditation so that now all the sisters in their chapels have the words of our Lord on
the cross printed next to the crucifix. Our Lord's thirst is for the love of souls. He thirsts to
have souls saved. He thirsts to be loved by them even though he doesn't need to be loved. I mean
it's just a mystery of the divine Godhead and and the goodness of God that he desires to be loved
by us. Saint John tells us in his letters that the love of God consists not in that we have loved him
but that he has loved us. We are made able to love him with his own love. We are able to return what
he has given us as Carmelites say Saint John and Saint Therese.
Love is returned by love alone and so paradoxically God who created everything and who made the water
from nothing sits at the well and is thirsty and doesn't relieve himself, doesn't satisfy his
thirst but waits for the woman to come and then persuades her to give him something to drink and
in the conversation he tells about the love of God that he has for Salome which is God's love.
process she realizes that she is far more thirsty than he is and he explains this to her in this
long conversation in which he gently but firmly draws the poison from her and then heals and
gives her sustenance and she gets a little testy in the process as she sees that he reads her soul
she changes the subject and and and contests with him over the question of the Jews and the
Samaritans and the right place to worship sort of diverting the conversation to things which
are in the context of of the conversation completely irrelevant it's really about about
her and her own need and the fact that he is the one who can satisfy her and and that and that this
is a perfect
is the perfect
a perfect
a perfect
a perfect
p insult in your prayer to your house and lime aará and well not authentically 우리는
for her existence but in the process you know Jesus's patience and his presence
wins the day and so as we continue in our own Lenten journey walking on the
road to Calvary with with Jesus we realize that we have a goal and that destiny to which we are
called the the arrival point of our journey is ultimately heaven of course the resurrection but
but more immediately on this side of the veil it's it's Calvary it's our conformity to to the
mystery of Christ Jesus and the resurrection of Christ Jesus and the resurrection of Christ Jesus
sacrificial love and our Lord is persuasive and yet he leaves us free he'll wait and he will give
us to drink and he asks for drink but nobody is going to force our hand we must cooperate and
respond to his grace and we can think
about as well during this time of Lent
how our Lord's goodness and generosity
his patience and forbearance
needs to be reciprocated not only
in the form of our gratitude to Jesus but
also in our willingness to treat one another the way our Lord
treats us. And that's
the tricky part of bringing the grace of God
and conversion and mercy to other people.
Our Lord was the divine expert
who was able
to be both God and man. Perfect God
and perfect man because he is the incarnate word.
And so in the scriptures and the
gospels we see how our Lord is
truly divine. His majesty and authority
always shines forth. The perfection of his virtue
and the unsaleable quality of
his words is being true and being
authoritative and being unquestionable. Being powerful
being capable of transforming. All of that.
And yet his work is a work of persuasion.
He doesn't
force anybody's hand. Everyone's free to choose.
And you know he's patient and forbearing and
in the end
you know he goes to the cross. So he comes, he speaks, he
gives the truth, he works miracles. Some listen, many don't.
People accuse him, they misunderstand him,
they revile him,
reject him,
plot his death.
All the while he maintains his position. Doesn't back down from anything he said
or anything
that he had come to do.
And yet at the same time, he continues in his work
of persuasion and
and of mercy.
And in the end,
of course,
through the other great paradox or not the great paradox.
the other but one of the other you know many great paradoxes but probably the principal one
through the mystery of the cross he saves us he dies he is buried you know it's the end
whole thing is finished yet it's not finished because he doesn't stay dead he comes back to
life and through the power of his sacrifice and the sacraments that he has established he
communicates that grace to us and so we we live his suffering and death and resurrection
through our baptism and through all the grace that comes to us through the church and through
the sacraments and his work his work continues and so as we pray and do penance and and give alms
we ask that we might have the heart of christ that we might you know learn
to be generous
and to satisfy his thirst by realizing how much we are in need of of the living water that he
gives us that he says will well up it up into to eternal life if we embrace it and nurture it
and and then we also realize that for the world to be transformed for the world to pass from
its own sinfulness to a life of grace
and and conversion and and and spiritual life that our lord needs us to bring it about
that's again this same paradox our lord is needy
he waits for us to bring him to others and so we have a tremendous work to do and we always have
to look to our our lord and savior as the ideal of everything that we have to do and we have to
do everything that we do and not reduce him to something you know that some some one-sided kind of
thing you know where jesus is all all love and no truth or all truth and no love where he's uh
severe and not merciful or where he's merciful and not not firm you know the hard road is in
the middle we'd like to do it all one way and and pick and choose the parts of the gospel that we
like and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and
and say this is the way our lord would do it and just neglect the rest because we prefer to indulge
our nature our tendencies the hard road is is the middle way it's always the middle way
and it's only the middle way that's going to bring about our own conversion and the conversion of
the world the world needs to hear the truth the world also needs to find mercy the world needs
someone that will not compromise but the world needs someone that will not compromise and that
will not abandon them as well and that's just the way it is there's no other way to bring about
the fruitfulness of god's grace except through that harder road which is right down the middle
and in which there's never any perfect resolution of the problems in which we find ourselves we're
always going to have to deal with people we don't like or that we don't want to deal with we're
always going to have to um you know deal with it
instances in which we'd rather be silent you know but we need to stand up and be counted
we're going to have friends we're going to have enemies uh it's going to be you know part a bit
of both and we're just going to have to deal with it and realize that that's the road to calvary
and god's grace uh is sufficient so we pray that we may uh
to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to
come to this really be able to come to this really be able to be able to be able to be able to
be able to be able to be able to be able to come through this lent
that we might
encounter the firm but ever-present mercy of god
as the woman at the well did that we might be persuaded to
look upon our lord and see how thirsty he is
for our love and for the love of all souls
and that as we recognize it how
dependent we are on him and how much in need we are
are of his love, infinitely more, of course, than he is of ours.
And that we're always free.
You know, he will not push us.
He will be persistent, God willing.
I mean, you know, we can shut our eyes and our ears
and ignore the graces that he gives us,
and that's our own choice.
But he will not abandon us if we don't want to be abandoned.
And he will not stop urging us forward
if we desire to hear his voice.
And so we can say with the Holy Spirit,
as we hear his voice,
may we not harden our hearts to his grace,
but be ever more docile
and be more open to him.
To his workings and that of the Holy Spirit,
so that we can know the truth
and worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
that we might worship him in the love of Christ Jesus,
who gives himself for us
and continues to work his miracle of grace in us
through the living water of his sacraments,
especially through his own presence in the Blessed Sacrament,
where he feeds us and sustains us
and allows us to live in his love.
Allows the living water of his eternal life
to well up in us
and renew us
as we progress towards Easter
to celebrate his triumph
and the victory of his grace
in us and in the world.
For he gives thanks to the underneath well.
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