St. Ignatius Martyr Parish

For the next three weeks, the readings will put us in touch with three significant spiritual symbols of our faith: water, light and life. Our reflections on water, light and life will confront us with the mystery of Jesus' dying and rising and the manner in which it must continue to impact a thirsty, darkened and dying world.

This Sundays' readings focus on water, specifically on the life-giving water of which Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman. We first received this life-giving water at baptism when we died with Christ in the waters of baptism and were raised with him. At that time we were washed clean and made members of his Church. But more than that, our baptism makes possible our growth in the person and mission of Jesus Christ. Just as humans need water to live, so as Christians, we need the life-giving water of Jesus to keep us refreshed so as to renew daily our commitment to the person of Jesus Christ. We also need this water to maintain us in continuing the mission of Jesus in service of the world. As Jesus tells the woman, the water he offers can satisfy our thirst because the water he offers is the water of eternal life.

Like the woman, we look to other means to satisfy our thirst to be happy. After five husbands, she was still not happy. However, in meeting Jesus, her thirst was quenched. She found refreshment in his words of love and compassion. We, too, will find refreshment and life in Jesus' words. He accepts us as we are and encourages us to change. Thus, he invites us to constantly approach him who is our source of life-giving water. We do this through daily prayer and Sunday Eucharist.

Lent is our time to refill ourselves with this life-giving water as we renew our efforts to repent and return to God. In this story of the Samaritan woman, we sinners are given the hope of a similar experience of transformation, that is, change. But as with the woman, we must first thirst for the living water of Jesus Christ.

For the Elect, the third, fourth and fifth Sundays in Lent mark the celebration of the rites called Scrutinies. They scrutinize, i.e. examine their own lives and allow God to scrutinize and heal them. We, as a community of faith, pray that God cast out sin and temptation and fill the elect with grace. At the same time, we examine our lives and pray that God lead us to recognize that sin still plagues our hearts and for the grace to overcome that sin. In the deserts of life, we can have hope if we believe and endure because God's love has been poured into our hearts like living water. God's thirst for us and our thirst for God, move us nearer to God and draw us deeper into God's divine embrace.

Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Joe