Some of you know we have already taken precautions against the coronavirus. First of all, follow the CDC’s protocols and guidelines. If you’re sick or not feeling well or afraid of catching the virus, stay home. Here at Church we have emptied the holy water fonts, and we ask you to give a wave instead of a handshake at the sign of peace. We’re offering communion only from the ciborium and not from the chalice and ask you to receive communion in the hand, not on the tongue. The school is also not in session for the week; and the school auction is rescheduled for Saturday, May 9. Finally, stay tuned for updates on our St Raphael website or parish app.
We are in the middle of the Lenten season: a six-week journey from ashes into the Easter mystery.
Each Sunday in Lent reflects on life, as in a prism. The first Sunday, a hungry Jesus tells the tempter what truly nourishes life, eternal life: not bread alone but every word from God. Then last Sunday, the Transfiguration, the disciples saw the unique and awesome presence of God in Jesus. They saw the future of Jesus and theirs. Yes, in death, God will transfigure us into the likeness of the transfigured Jesus. Today Jesus is life-giving water for the woman at the well. Through the waters of Baptism, God is already transforming us into new creatures, God-like creatures.
The word of God today carries us back to the exodus: the deliverance or freedom of the Hebrews from their oppressors in ancient Egypt. Here they are wandering and complaining in the wilderness! Where is God, they wonder. Moses cries out to God, and God demonstrates his presence among them. Water suddenly flows from a rock and quenches their thirst.
The life-giving waters from the rock allude to our baptism and the promises made to God. Now Baptism is a rite of initiation into a global faith community of disciples of Jesus. Water can be death-threatening (think, e.g., of a hurricane) or life-giving (imagine, e.g., you’re in a desert). The waters of Baptism symbolize a dying to a self-centered life and a rising to an other-centered, God-centered life. The author here may be asking whether we are living a God-centered life.
Paul in his letter to the Christian Community at Rome speaks about the saving work of Jesus Christ. Through his horrendous death and glorious resurrection, we have friendship with God whose love and life is poured out upon and into us in baptism so that we can reflect the presence and glory of God in our lives. Paul may be wondering whether our attitudes and behaviors do precisely that.
In the Gospel according to John, Jesus asks for water from a woman of questionable character (she had five husbands) and from a despised people (the Samaritans), only to engage her in a conversation about thirst. Jesus reveals who he is. He is a prophet, the messiah, the source who gifts us with eternal life, living water who can satisfy our quest for meaning in life. In faith, this woman discovers new purpose in life through her encounter with Jesus, and she heralds the good news to her townsfolk.
We all thirst like Jesus and the woman at the well, don't we? But what are we thirsty for? Some simply thirst for a decent livelihood. Others for health, wealth, pleasure, power and fame. Still others, like the Samaritan woman, seem to thirst for purpose.
Lent is a time to ask ourselves, what on earth am I here for? What am I living for? And how integrate these questions into the here and now.
So often, people live in the future, not in the present. Some imagine,
My life will begin when I get a new job, when I get my degree, when I rebuild
my home, when my child gets well, when I retire someday. Life will begin in the future?
Naomi Levy, in her book Hope Will Find You, wrote that while caring
for her critically ill daughter, she wondered when could she realize the dreams and goals she had for herself. She wrote: “I could see the ways I had been promising myself there was a future waiting for me. And just then something snapped inside my soul: This is my future: the present, the here and now. I’d been walking around thinking, this isn’t my life; my life is coming; it’s just around the bend.” She thought of all the people she knew who were chanting that message. She realized, “We were fooling ourselves into thinking our lives hadn’t begun. But all of us have to learn to live inside the imperfect lives we have here and now.”
Today Jesus urges us to repent, to live our everyday lives to the fullest, to live each day as though it’s our last. This Lenten season is a time for finding our way out of our winters of negativity, our deserts of self-absorption, our wildernesses of disappointments, images that weave in and out of scripture.
These days before Easter are a time for deciding what we believe to be truly important and meaningful, and then acting upon them today. For the only thing we can count on is today. We can’t do anything about yesterday, and we don’t know about tomorrow.
Our Christian faith proclaims that life has meaning, that there is indeed an all-good, compassionate, and merciful God who seeks us out in our everyday experiences.
This God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. And through his death and resurrection God re-established his friendship with us and opened up to us life beyond this earthly life. This same God is alive among us today by the power of the Spirit, especially in the sacramental life of our global Catholic community. This is the mystery of the triune God, a God who is one yet diverse, stable yet dynamic, transcendent yet immanent!
And we can participate in God’s triune life not only here and now but hereafter by living a life of regular prayer, by fasting from attitudes and behaviors that jeopardize our relationship with God and with one another, and by living a life of generous service to one another.
That is our Lenten message. I think this quote sums it up well, and many of you know it:
I shall pass through this world but once:
any good therefore that I can do
or any kindness that I can show to any human being,
let me do it now, let me not defer or neglect it
for I shall not pass this way again.
Try not to live a life of regrets (a life of should haves or shouldn’t haves). Any good we can do, do it now.
