You may have heard about the man who went to his doctor with concerns about his health and appearance. “I feel terrible,” the patient said. “When I look in the mirror, I see a balding head, sagging jowls, a pot belly, crooked teeth, bloodshot eyes…I'm a mess! I desperately need good news to boost my self-image.” The physician responded, “Well, the good news is you have perfect eyesight.”
We are in the middle of the Lenten season: a six-week journey from ashes to the bright mystery of Easter. Each Sunday in Lent the readings reflect 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 the earthly Jesus. They saw the future of Jesus and their own future. Yes, 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 first carries us back to the exodus: the deliverance and 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. Water 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 threatening (think, e.g., of a hurricane) or life-giving (imagine you’re in a desert). The waters of Baptism symbolize a dying to a self-centered life and rising to an other-centered, God-centered life.Yes, the author 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 us and into us in Baptism so that we can begin to reflect the presence and glory of God in our lives. Paul may be asking whether our attitudes and behaviors do precisely that.
In the Gospel, Jesus asks for water from a person of questionable character (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 faith, this woman discovers new purpose in life through her time 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?
What are we thirsty for? Some for a decent livelihood. Others for health, wealth, pleasure, power, fame. Still others, like the Samaritan woman, seem to thirst for purpose. Lent is a time to ask, what on earth am I here for? What am I living for? And how integrate these into the present.
So often, people imagine, My life will begin when I get a new job, when I get my degree, when I rebuild my home, when I retire someday. Life will begin in the future? In her book Hope Will Find You, Naomi Levy wrote that while caring for her critically ill daughter, she wondered about the dreams and goals she had for herself. She wrote: “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.” 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 that now. 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, who is one yet diverse, stable yet dynamic, transcendent yet immanent!
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.
That is our Lenten message. I think this quote sums it up well, and 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.
