Encountering one another:
The Third Sunday of Lent
March 12, 2023
www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com
predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673
Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42
The story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well is a complex story that shows us how a non-Jew was able to come to belief in Jesus as the Messiah. What impresses me is that the story takes time to unfold and it happens through dialogue. In the background, the disciples of Jesus and the Samaritans knew that story of Moses when water flowed from the rock at Massah and Meribah. The people knew that God would sustain the people and would nurture their life with water in the desert. Jesus stands at a desert outpost where Jacob’s well was a post where both Jews and Samaritans could fetch water. Samaria was a land that Jesus had to pass through on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem.
The woman knew that water was needed for survival, for sanitation, cooking, and cleaning. Jesus converses with the woman in the language we know so well: The water I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman responds: Sir, give me this water. The woman slowly comes to understand the offer Jesus makes, and she know Jesus has a special quality about him, and she is able to let go of all her preconceived notions and religious thoughts from her own tradition to see that he is the Christ. She is privileged because Jesus discloses his identity to her personally, and she comes to full belief. Being in the presence of Jesus dismantles ideologies and tightly held beliefs. It happened with the Samaritan woman and the townspeople, and it happens even to this day.
We know that it is imprudent to talk politics or religion in public because many people are not aware how to dialogue with skill and finesse. We mostly do not talk religion with people in our own church because we have divergent views and tightly held views that shut down conversations. We get uptight if someone believes something contrary to what we believe, and we ostracize the person. We get emotional if someone doesn’t share our ideology. However, belief in Jesus removes ideologies and it seeks to find unity as a community that shares his way of life. Our faith wants us to encounter one another, with our cultural, racial, social differences, and even our different religious beliefs, and to find the commonalities as we are a people of goodwill. We are enriched when we acknowledge differences in an open spirit of hospitality.
Our Synod is set out to do just that. We, the baptized, are the living voice of the People of God. The Synod sets out to hear the voices of other people in their local contexts, including people who have left the practice of the faith, people of other faith traditions, and people of no religious belief. Special care should be taken to involve those persons who may risk being excluded: women, the handicapped, refugees, migrants, the elderly, people who live in poverty, Catholics who rarely or never practice their faith.
Cardinal Mario Gresh who heads up the Synod worldwide writes: In the consultation we were able to hear all voices, except the voice of those who did not speak, because they could not or did not want to. We also listened to the silence! We also listened to the empty chair! If one could not because we have failed to listen, we are called upon to verify what we have failed in. But if he did not want to, we must understand the reasons why. The truest way is to create ‘places’ where everyone can speak; places of confrontation, where everyone feels they are heard. Truth in the Church does not depend on the tone and volume of statements, but on the consensus it is able to create precisely from listening to each other. We must not be afraid to confront each other: it is not our arguments that will convince us, but the Holy Spirit who leads the Church to the whole truth.
The Holy Spirit led the Samaritan woman to know Jesus as the Messiah. Many people in the world thirst for God’s abiding love through Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus is leading us to dismantle ideologies so that we can come together in the certain knowledge that Jesus is our Way, and he will nourish us with living water, the springs of eternal life.
Scripture for Daily Mass
First Reading:
Monday: (2 Kings 5) Naaman, the king of Aram, contracted leprosy. A captured girl wanted him to present himself to the prophet in Samaria. Naaman was instructed to wash seven times in the Jordan River and his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child.
Tuesday: (Daniel 3) Azariah asked for the Lord’s deliverance. He asked that the Lord deal with them in kindness and with great mercy.
Wednesday: (Deuteronomy 4) Moses spoke to the people asking them to hear and heed the statutes and decrees he received from the Lord. Do not forget the things the Lord has done.
Thursday: (Jeremiah 7) They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.
Friday: (Hosea 14) Return to God, who forgives all iniquity. The Lord will heal their defection and love them freely for his wrath is turned away from them.
Saturday: (Hosea 6) Come, let us return to the Lord. It is love that I desire, not sacrificed, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Gospel:
Monday: (Luke 4) Jesus reminded people that a prophet is without honor in his own land and he called the mind the story of Naaman, the foreigner from Syria, who was cured.
Tuesday: (Matthew 18) Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness. He said to forgiven seventy-seven time because unless each person forgives from the heart, he will not be forgiven.
Wednesday: (Matthew 5) Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Each commandment is to be observed; the one who does it will be the greatest in the Kingdom.
Thursday: (Luke 11) Jesus drove out a demon that was mute and was then accused of being in league with Beelzebul. Jesus explained to them how that does not make much sense.
Friday: (Mark 12) A scribe asked Jesus to declare which is the first commandment. Love the God with you whole soul and your neighbor like yourself. The scribe was well pleased.
Saturday: (Luke 18) Jesus told a parable about prayer to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. The one who is humble is favored by God.
Saints of the Week
March 17: Patrick, bishop (389-461), is the revered Apostle of Ireland and patron saint of many U.S. dioceses. He is credited for bringing the faith to all of Ireland. He was abducted and enslaved at age 16 by pirates and taken to Ireland where he worked as a cattle herded and shepherd in the mountains. He escaped after six years and eventually returned to his native Britain where he became a priest. Pope Celestine sent Patrick as a missionary to Ireland to evangelize them. Though he was under constant risk from hostile pagans, he converted many of them and developed a native clergy by the time of his death.
This Week in Jesuit History
- March 12, 1622. Pope Gregory XV canonized Sts Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila, and Philip Neri.
- March 13, 1568. John Segura and five companions set sail from Spain for Florida, a fertile field of martyrs. (Nine Jesuits were killed there between 1566 and 1571.)
- March 14, 1535. Ignatius received his degree from the University of Paris.
- March 15, 1632. The death of Diego Ruiz, a great theologian, who studied on his knees.
- March 16, 1649. The martyrdom in Canada of St John de Brebeuf, apostle to the Huron Indians. Captured by the Iroquois along with some Christian Hurons, he endured horrible tortures.
- March 17, 1964. The death of Joseph O’Callaghan. He was awarded the US Medal of Honor for heroism as chaplain on the USS Franklin, off Japan on March 19, 1945.
- March 18, 1541. Two letters arrived from Lisbon from Francis Xavier. One was addressed to Ignatius, the other to Frs. LeJay and Laynez. They were written just before his departure to India.
No comments:
Post a Comment