Readings
I - Hos. 6: 1-6
II - Rom. 5: 1-2, 5-8
III - Jn. 4: 5-42
JESUS IS THE LIVING WATER
Water is vital for all life. Dry land becomes fertile with water, plants remain fresh with supply of water and the thirsty throat gets satiated with a glass of water. In the first reading of the day, the Israelites grumbled against Moses for want of water and God did quench their thirst. In the Gospel passage the Samaritan woman came to the well to fetch water. Jesus through the long conversation with the Samaritan woman makes her to discover for herself the living water in Jesus Christ. Nowhere in the Gospel passage had Jesus revealed himself as Messiah except to this woman. The Jews considered themselves elite because they were chosen by God and never associated with the Samaritans. All the more Jesus was the rabbi and in talking to the woman he was risking his spirituality. He never cared about anything but in the salvation of the Samaritan woman.
Today people run after money, power, position, name, fame, titles and the like because they crave for these things that would and can never satisfy them. The emptiness they feel within them drives them to find fulfillment in the things that are temporary. The Psalmist says, “As the deer longs for running streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God (Ps. 42: 1).” Only God can fill all our emptiness and quench us from all our thirsts. Our response to the responsorial psalm today is, “O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your voice.” Be open to the voice of God as we partake in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration and implore his grace to capture his voice and submit ourselves to the same so that we too can joyfully like the Samaritan woman proclaim to the world that there is joy only in discovering the Lord. Let our mind and heart resonate with the prayer: “Lord Jesus, help me listen to you voice.”
