THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT-A – 2023

Ø  The third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent will teach us about one of the signs of baptism.

Ø  These readings are found only in the liturgical year A, all of them are baptismal readings.

Ø   During these 3 Sundays, the catechumens will celebrate the scrutinies, which are penitential rites to help the catechumens in their journey towards the Sacraments of initiation. 

FIRST READING – Ex 17:3-7

Ø  In chapter 15 there is another scene about water, in that scene they cannot drink because the water is bitter.

Ø  In chapter 17 the people are exhausted and thirsty, they want water.

Ø  They do not attack Moses, but God.  They think that God is not able to take care of them in the wilderness.

Ø  Their concept of God is very primitive; God is he who solves all the difficulties. As the people of Israel walk the journey of faith, they will learn little by little who God is. The prophets will tell them that  God wants to have a loving personal relationship with the People and with each one of the members of the people of Israel. Still more, God wants to have this relationship with each human being.

Ø  Moses asks God, and God, as always, answers like a loving and caring parent.

Ø  Take the elders, so they will be witnesses of what I will do and struck the rock with the rod with which you struck the river.

Ø  And water flows in abundance.

Ø  The last sentence of this Sunday’s reading tells us the real meaning of the quarrel, they doubt about God

Ø  Do you doubt also? 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM   Ps 95

If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart

Come let us sing joyfully to the Lord

Let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation

Let us greet him with thanksgiving;

Let us joyfully sing psalms to him.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart

Come; let us bow down in worship

Let us kneel before the Lord who made us

For he is our God

And we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart

Oh, that today you would hear his voice

Harden not your hearts as at Meribah

As in Massah in the desert,

Where your fathers tempted me

They tested me though they had seen my works.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart 

• The first stanza is an invitation to rejoice and acclaim the rock who saves us
• In the second stanza the psalmist invites to kneel, to worship our God
• And the third one God himself tells us to listen to his voice.   

 SECOND READING – Rom 5:1-2. 5-8

«  In the preceding chapters Paul has explained how do we reach salvation

«  In the chapters, which will follow after this reading, Paul will concentrate in explaining what salvation is.

«  In this fragment of his letter, Paul switches from the word faith to the word life.

«  The word life has a physical meaning in Rom 7,1-3

«  Apart from those two verses, life has a variety of meanings which we know through   the words used by Paul:

o   Peace, in the sense of the Hebrew word shalom, which is the fullness of all that is good and the absence of anything bad. The true shalom will be reached only in Heaven.

o   Grace, gift. We called grace the gift   to participate in God’s life during our earthly journey.

o    Hope, which enables us to continue with joy our journey even among the hardships of life.

o   Love which God has poured out into our hearts.

o   The Holy Spirit whom the Father has given to us.

o   The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us when we were still sinners.

GOSPEL:  John 4:5-42

ü  In his journey from Jerusalem to Galilee Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

ü  At the town of Sychar he stops and sits at the well Jacob had given to his sons.

ü  He is tired, hungry and thirsty. His disciples had gone to the town to buy food. 

Dialogue with the Samaritan woman:

      The woman comes to the well at noon, this is not the normal time to come to the well, but maybe her life was not accepted by the other women, thus she used to come at noon when nobody was there.

      Jesus says “give me to drink ”

The woman answers, “You are a man and a Jew, I am a Samaritan woman. (A man was not supposed to speak in public with a woman and much less with a Samaritan woman. Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans)

Jesus says: if you knew whom it is that is asking for a drink, you would ask him instead.  

      The woman recognizes something different in this man: Sir, you do not have a bucket…. Jesus is willing to drink from the woman’s bucket. This is truly, what the Son of God has done; share our bucket-our life becoming human one like us.

Jesus tells her that anyone drinking the water from the well will continue to be thirsty; he can give her living water, which shall become a spring within her, leaping up to eternal life.

The woman wants this water, but she is still at the material level, if this man gives her that kind of water she will not have to come back to well every day.

Jesus wants to take the woman a step further, “go tell you husband and come back here”

      The woman is drawn to the light although she is still reluctant, this man knows her life. How much she has been looking to satiate her thirst of love, always in the wrong place.

Jesus tells her you are right you have had 5 husbands and the one you have now is not yours.

The woman says “Sir you are a prophet”

She engages in a conversation over the place of worship, maybe she is embarrassed by what Jesus has told her, she still fights against the light, which is given to her.

The true worshiper will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, because God is Spirit.

The woman now talks about the Messiah

Jesus makes to her the greatest revelation “I who speak to you, am he”

      About the five husband there here an interesting symbol. In the Bible the woman represents always her people. Here the woman who speaks with Jesus represents the whole people of Samaria and her husbands are the symbol of the 5 idols of the Samaritans.

 

The scene is changed now.

• The disciples come back; they do not ask although they are surprised to see Jesus in conversation with a woman.
• The woman leaves her bucket, she does not need it any more, she has finally found peace and reconciliation within herself, she already has the fountain of water promised by Jesus, her joy is complete. She wants to share it with the people of her town “come to see a man who has told me the things I ever did, could he be the Messiah?”
• Meanwhile the disciples want Jesus to eat, Jesus, as he did with the woman talking to her about the living water,  he speaks to the disciples about another bread, the bread of the will of the Father. (In the first temptation he answered “not only of bread…. But the will of God.)
• He explains to them that they have been sent to reap what others had worked. In the Church, each one has its own mission given by the Lord, and all together we do the will of the Father.
• The people from the town come and on listening to Jesus, they believe in him.

 

The more we went into that immense sea of waters the more my spirit plunged into the immense sea of God , when I looked at myself  within the heart of my God  and Lord more clearly than in a mirror. God was so pleased in this way of considering his infinite greatness that often times He made me feel the tenderness of his most holy arms with which His holy Majesty pressed my soul within his sacred heart…. The immensity of the sea reminded me of the immensity of God and those skies so wide brought to my mind the immense spaces of the glory of the saints. Venerable María Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 159. 

Fire that always burns, love that is always on fire and is never lukewarm, enkindle in me the fire of your love, so that I may love you. I love you, Jesus, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. I would like to love you more and that all love you. I would like to love you for me and for all your creatures. Most Holy Virgin Mary, grant me the grace that all be saved and no one  be condemned.  St. Anthony M. Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Prayer.