Homily, Third Sunday of Lent
February 24, 2008
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God Bless
Fr. Brendan
· Homily
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The River of Living Water
A river starts somewhere high up in the mountains and finds it way, all the way to the ocean. It will not stop at anything. It will go down the mountain, into the valley; it will meander around any obstacle it cannot make its way through it, until it finds its way all the way to the ocean; for that is in the nature of water to do that. Along its way, it often carves out beautiful canyons to reach the ocean such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Over the history of time rivers have produced some stunning sites. It also has been blocked and obstructed at times and those obstructions eventually get pushed out of the way in some of the greater storms.
There are other times when we as humans have decided to intervene and decide to stop the water for certain reasons. We erect a dam, often for energy purposes or other good reasons, we redirect it or hold it where it is.
Today in the scriptures, we hear how Jesus says he comes as the living water. He comes as that wellspring that will be spring within us to eternal life. In other words, if we allow it, Christ will flow through our lives and through our hearts making our hearts purer and clean. If we allow Him, He will cleanse us constantly on an ongoing basis.
We often, like this Samaritan woman in today's gospel, have something that has blocked the way of Christ in our hearts. Often that is our sinfulness. If you would, that natural sort of stuff, that keeps or slows down the flow of the river and blocks it at times. If we allow the Lord, He will also wash away all those sins and keep the river flowing full strength. And that is what we are called to do.
That is what the Samaritan woman did today, was to allow the Lord to forgive her by His mere presence and His conversations with her at the well, He was the living demonstration of that forgiveness and that she had to allow that to happen.
In the 2nd reading today, Paul is talking about something similar: it is through Christ, through faith in Jesus Christ we are saved. He came to save us all, sinners, so that we would be made new. So in other words, we are called to allow the Lord, through His grace, the living waters of life to flow through our hearts, and to create the beautiful canyons and to make clean and clear our life in that way that way.
That is one way we can allow the Lord to make us clean, but there are other things that block the Lord. I think as humans, it is not just our sinfulness in the things we do, but we also construct dams, by which we refuse to do things for others. We refuse to allow the Lord to do certain things in our lives. For example, one dam that we so commonly build in our lives is the dam of unforgiveness. We build it with great ingenuity. We will not forgive the person for some number of years until they do some one thing that is rather impractical or even impossible. We literally build a dam, holding back the Lord's grace in our life and in their life. And, we find it so hard to let the river flow.
We also construct other dams. We construct dams of judgment. We construct dams of categories for others. We construct dams of lack of care for others; lack of thought for others. And how do we construct these dams? We build them by being busy with so many things in our lives. In the busyness of our lives, we build alternative routes for the water. But we are called to not build dams. We are called to not even allow the obstruction of our sins to get in the way, but to allow God's living water to flow right through out hearts and cleanse our hearts, to allow the Lord to break open that dam so we can forgive others; to break open that dam so that we can be caring and kind towards others; to break open the dam of our sinfulness to allow God's grace to wash us and to clean our hearts.
In just a few moments, we will witness the scrutiny of the candidates and we will invite the candidates to be renewed on their journey of faith and they will ask the Lord to make clean their hearts; We too will join in that same prayer to make clean our hearts. We also stand as people in need of God's forgiveness. We too stand in the need of the flow of the river of life and water of life that will cleanse our hearts.
So, today as we listen to these words, we allow the living waters to flow freely in our hearts, to make clean and to make pure our hearts once again, to remove the obstruction of sin and from the dams of selfishness and unforgiveness.
· Footnotes
· Scripture Readings
Reading 1
Ex 17:3-7
In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Was it just to have us die here of thirst
with our children and our livestock?"
So Moses cried out to the LORD,
"What shall I do with this people?
a little more and they will stone me!"
The LORD answered Moses,
"Go over there in front of the people,
along with some of the elders of Israel,
holding in your hand, as you go,
the staff with which you struck the river.
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink."
This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel.
The place was called Massah and Meribah,
because the Israelites quarreled there
and tested the LORD, saying,
"Is the LORD in our midst or not?"
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8) If today you
hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear
his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear
his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear
his voice, harden not your hearts.
Reading II
Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
Brothers and sisters:
Since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Gospel
Jn 4:5-42 or 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob's well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
"Give me a drink."
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
"How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"
-For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.-
Jesus answered and said to her,
"If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,'
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water."
The woman said to him,
"Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?"
Jesus answered and said to her,
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The woman said to him,
"Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water."
Jesus said to her,
"Go call your husband and come back."
The woman answered and said to him,
"I do not have a husband."
Jesus answered her,
"You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.'
For you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true."
The woman said to him,
"Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem."
Jesus said to her,
"Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth."
The woman said to him,
"I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything."
Jesus said to her,
"I am he, the one speaking with you."
At that moment his disciples returned,
and were amazed that he was talking with a woman,
but still no one said, "What are you looking for?"
or "Why are you talking with her?"
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
"Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?"
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat."
But he said to them,
"I have food to eat of which you do not know."
So the disciples said to one another,
"Could someone have brought him something to eat?"
Jesus said to them,
"My food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
Do you not say, 'In four months the harvest will be here'?
I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment
and gathering crops for eternal life,
so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified that 'One sows and another reaps.'
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for;
others have done the work,
and you are sharing the fruits of their work."
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him
because of the word of the woman who testified,
"He told me everything I have done."
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
"We no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."
Holy Spirit Parish
1200 Redmond Avenue
San Jose, California 95120