March 8, 2026

3^rd Sunday of Lent (A)

More than Well Water—Living Water!

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

 
Today we hear the longest conversation Our Lord had with anyone in the Gospel. It is unusual in many ways:

1. Jesus converses with a woman and no Jew would speak to a strange woman alone.  
2. The woman was a Samaritan and Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans because they had intermarried with pagans, built their own temple, and rejected much of the Scriptures. 
3. The conversation takes place at noon. Women typically gathered to draw water in the morning. No woman would draw water in the heat at noon or even go alone, as this woman did.

 
The reason she did is revealed in her conversation with Our Lord: She was divorced five times and was living with someone not her husband. This made her the object of ridicule and gossip and so she sought to avoid the crowds.
 
Still, Jesus takes the initiative and addresses her. This already opens her heart: Here is someone who does not criticize, judge, or condemn her. A conversation begins about water. The woman’s focus is on H²0. But Jesus speaks about a different water—the living water of grace—which can quench the inner thirst that has driven this woman from one man to another without having her true needs satisfied. She fails to understand but her curiosity is aroused.  
 
So, Our Lord takes another approach to reach her. He gets personal and touches the most painful issue of her life—her irregular living situation. Our Lord’s thirst is for her salvation. Here was a woman who had made many bad choices in life. She had been hurt time and time again. She had hit many dead ends in her life. She responds as so many of us do, when someone touches on a personal, painful reality of our life—she changes the subject!  
 
"If he knows the painful circumstances of my life, he must be a prophet. Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about religion, about the temple and the true place to worship."
 
Jesus would have her look no further than himself. Revealing himself as the Messiah, he explains that the worship of God is not confined to a specific time and place, to the temple in Jerusalem or the temple of the Samaritans on Mt. Garizim. Faith is centered in Jesus whom we worship in spirit and in truth.  
 
All of God’s children (even she, an outcast living in shame) can gain equal access to God. Here we see the Good Shepherd patiently and lovingly seeking out one who had strayed and offering to bring her back home. The encounter was transformative. Slowly the woman’s heart was opened to whom she was conversing—not just a Jew, not a prophet, but the Messiah.  
 
The apostles left their nets to follow the Lord; she leaves her water jug at the well to go out to spread the news about the Lord. Through her testimony many came to believe. How surprising that in the land of heretics the title “Savior of the World” was used to describe Jesus.
 
For the Elect, the Gospel points to the life-giving and life-changing waters of Baptism that awaits them. Easter will bring a new life to be lived, a gift to be shared, a faith to be proclaimed.  
 
For all of us, Lent is a time to allow God to get personal, to meddle in our life so that we see the obstacles, the sins that weigh upon our hearts. We’d often like to change the subject but let us pray for the courage to change our lives.