Third Sunday of Lent / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The source of the first reading for Mass this Lenten weekend is the Book of Exodus, one of those five books of the Bible regarded as the basis of God’s revelation to the chosen people. The initial theological concepts and regulations about behavior are seen as being rooted in the original teachings of Moses.
Together, these books constitute the Torah, then and still the cornerstone of Judaism. Another name is the Pentateuch, this term coming from the Greek word for five.
As the title implies, the Book of Exodus greatly is concerned with the experiences of the Hebrews as they fled Egypt and moved toward the land that God had promised them. It was a very difficult trip. Even today, a journey across the Sinai Peninsula by land is bleak. It is not surprising that the Hebrews wondered if they had swapped the witch for the devil as they wandered across Sinai. In frustration, bewilderment and misery, they grumbled about Moses, who led the way.
Water was a precious commodity in this arid environment. Understandably, the people feared thirst. Moses, enlightened by God, told them to look for water in an improbable place—the side of a rock. As directed, the people struck the rock and water flowed.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans supplies the second reading. As is so typical of Paul’s writing, this passage celebrates Jesus as the only source of life and of bonding with God. It proclaims salvation in Christ as the gift coming from the willing sacrifice of the Lord on Calvary.
For its last reading this weekend, the Church presents a selection from St. John’s Gospel. It is the story of the Lord’s meeting with the Samaritan woman beside a well in Samaria. The reading is filled with lessons for us.
First, the site is Samaria. For the Jews of the Lord’s time, Samaria represented many bad things.
The woman is a Samaritan.
Samaritans were of Hebrew heritage, but they had acquiesced when foreigners invaded the land, compromising with paganism and even inter-marrying with pagan foreigners. Inter-marriage added insult to injury, because by such unions Samaritans defiled the Hebrew heritage.
Faithful Jews thus looked upon Samaritans with contempt.
Also, at the time of Jesus, no adult unmarried man ever engaged an unknown woman in conversation, let alone a Samaritan.
Jesus set all these considerations aside. He bore the mercy of God, and this mercy was meant for everyone, all conventions aside.
Furthermore, by outreach to this Samaritan woman, the Lord asserts that every person possesses a dignity and an invitation to eternal life.
More than Jacob of old, Jesus promises a gift of water greatly more satisfying than any that could be drawn from a well.
Finally, the Lord predicts that a new order is coming. It will be neither centralized in Jerusalem, nor on the mountaintops where the Samaritans customarily worshipped.
Reflection
A historic fixture in any Catholic church is a small bowl or vessel placed at the church’s doors. It is filled with water that has been blessed by a priest or deacon. It represents the water used in Christian baptism.
When Catholics enter the church, they touch the water in the bowl with their fingertips. Then, with their fingers moist with the holy water, they make the sign of the cross on themselves.
This gesture hopefully reminds people of their baptism when a bond with Christ was established with them. He received them in the Church. They promised, perhaps through their godparents if they were infants, to follow Christ all their days.
Lent is the time to decide whether or not these promises have been fulfilled up to now. Are they still the blueprint of life? It is time for re-commitment to them. †