Drink from the Life-Giving Spring
February 24, 2008

Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

Reading 1: Ex. 17:3–7

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 95:1–2, 6–7, 8–9

Reading 2: Rom. 5:1–2, 5–8

Gospel: Jn. 4:5–42 or 4:5–15, 19b–26, 39a, 40–42

Link to Readings

By Father Paul Hrezo

How can we receive refreshment from the Lord? Answering this question is a central message of today’s Gospel. And, this is not a selfish question. When our souls are truly refreshed and nourished by the Lord, when we are truly open to the interior spring of life-giving water that Jesus speaks about today, then we are able to be better people in every way and better able to be His faithful disciples. We are better able to see the Lord in others and then better able to lay down our lives for them. So, today’s question is a good question for us to ask. How do we receive this refreshment from the Lord?

Jesus gives us an answer when He tells the woman at the well that the days will come when true worshippers will worship the Lord in spirit and in truth and that the Father is seeking such people. A relationship with the Lord in spirit and in truth can keep us open to more consistent, ongoing refreshment from the Lord.

This spirit and truth relationship with the Lord leads us to experience a kind of balance in the various facets of our lives. We need this in our prayer, we need it in our study of the teachings of our faith, we need it in our service of others, and we need it in our moral lives as well.

The Father Is Seeking

If we’re honest with ourselves, we can recognize our desire for both dimensions—spirit and truth. And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can also recognize our need for balance. What can help us get going in our quest for this interior spring of life-giving water is recalling what Jesus told the woman at the well in that same sentence. The Father is seeking people to worship Him. The Father is seeking people to enter into a spirit and truth relationship with Him. When we find ourselves thirsting for the Lord, we can be refreshed first of all by realizing that God is thirsting for us. He is thirsting for people who are willing to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He will help us if we turn to Him. He will help us to experience a restoration and then a growth in being able to draw from both streams of that spring, the refreshment that comes from living in communion with Him, in spirit and in truth.

In our moral lives, for example, we ultimately need to know and see what is right and wrong. We need and, ultimately, want to know the truth. The truth will set us free (Jn. 8:32). At the same time, we also need to experience the Lord’s life-giving mercy.

Jesus was clear with the woman at the well about what was right and wrong in her moral life. That gift of the truth helped to set her free and helped her to begin experiencing the freedom of life in the Spirit. We need to know the objective truth of various actions. At the same time, we usually need a good measure of the Lord’s mercy to help us grow in virtue and to likewise enter into life in the Spirit. This season of Lent is a season for honesty, for truth. It is also a season for mercy. Both of these together help it to be rightly called “the joyful season of Lent,” as we hear in the first Preface prayer for Lent. We need the Lord to shine the light of the Holy Spirit into our lives so we can recognize what is truly right or wrong in our lives. We need the Holy Spirit to draw us to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to the reality of the Lord’s life-giving mercy. We then need the Holy Spirit to help us continue to grow in virtue and into lasting freedom.

Balancing Act

Our prayer life as well benefits from a spirit and truth relationship with the Lord. I know there are times when I simply want to praise God spontaneously. There are also other times when I benefit from the beauty and orderliness of community, ritual prayer. Sometimes, I know I need to speak to the Lord through words that come from the concreteness of my personal struggles. I need to be able to speak to the Lord in very plain language. At other times, notably after the Lord takes a load off my shoulders by His mercy, I find that joining the community for some kind of ritual prayer that expresses gratitude to the Lord for His awesome majesty and goodness is what suits that situation best.

In our study of the teachings of our faith, we can also benefit from a balanced approach. Yes, we have many textbook sources we can go to for studying the faith. We have the collected wisdom of many intelligent and diligent theologians who have synthesized these teachings and put them in understandable terms. On the other hand, the faith is something that is also learned concretely, by experiencing it in action.

But, a further balance is also needed. It’s not all about us. We need to gather for community prayer not only for our own sake, but also to lift up others in prayer and to be with and for them. We also need to follow the example of the woman at the well who went out to tell others about Jesus, about who He really is and what He had done for her. We, too, need to acknowledge God for what He does for us. Together, these are all elements of becoming the kind of people, the kind of worshippers, that the Father is thirsting for and seeking.

May we, by turning to the Lord in our thirst, find a restoration of a relationship with Him, a relationship in spirit and in truth that the Lord wants to give us. May we become people who worship Him in spirit and in truth in our prayers and in all the facets of our lives. Amen.

Fr. Paul Hrezo, a priest of the Diocese of Steubenville, is currently serving as Spiritual Director for the college seminarians at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the current State Chaplain for the Knights of Columbus.

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