… the gift of God…

The time of the fast, a way of life.

All this began from the real and notable experience of thirst. The theme of thirst runs throughout John’s Gospel: from the meeting with the Samaritan woman to the great prophecy during the feast of Tabernacles, even to the Cross, when Jesus, before he dies, said to fulfil the Scriptures: “I thirst”. Christ’s thirst is an entranceway to the mystery of God, who became thirsty to satisfy our thirst, just as he became poor to make us rich. Yes, God thirsts for our faith and our love. As a good and merciful father, he wants our total, possible good, and this good is he himself. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, represents the existential dissatisfaction of one who does not find what he seeks. She had “five husbands” and now she lives with another man; her going to and from the well to draw water expresses a repetitive and resigned life. However, everything changes for her that day, thanks to the conversation with the Lord Jesus, who upsets her to the point that she leaves her pitcher of water and runs to tell the villagers: “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”.

Bénédict XVI AngélusThird sunday of lent 2008

 


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