Seeing Our True Selves in Prayer

By Marc Massery

Sunday, March 15, 2020, Third Sunday of Lent
• Ex 17:3-7
• Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
• Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
• Jn 4:5-42

In the Gospel reading this Sunday, Jesus comes to Samaria and sits by a well, tired from His long journey. Yes, even Jesus grew tired. 

When a Samaritan woman comes to draw water, Jesus asks her for a drink. After all, there’s nothing more desirable after a strenuous journey than a cup of water. By asking for a drink, however, Jesus is ignoring the fact that first-century Jews discouraged interaction with Samaritans. Samaritans, after all, had assimilated pagan practices and betrayed the laws of their faith by intermarrying with pagans. 

So the woman replies to Jesus, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jn 4:9).

Jesus 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. … Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst” (Jn 4:10).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains what’s going on here:

The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him (CCC, 2560).

Jesus had originally asked the woman for a drink; however, it turns out that it was He who wanted to give this woman a drink — a spiritual drink. The Lord and this Samaritan woman continue to speak with one another until Jesus reveals that He knows her whole story, particularly that she has had five husbands, and that she was living with a man who wasn’t her husband.

When we encounter Christ in prayer, He reveals the truth about Himself to us, but that’s not all. He reveals the truth about ourselves to us as well, helping us come to a deeper knowledge of our brokenness and need for Him. Many of us go through life trying to avoid introspection, afraid of confronting our most hidden wounds. But Jesus teaches that if we want to become holy, if we want peace, we need to realize our need — we need to realize our own thirst — so that we might willingly accept His healing.

This Gospel passage isn’t the only time Jesus uses the analogy of water to teach us about the importance of prayer. Once in St. Faustina’s Diary, Jesus comes to St. Faustina saying, “I thirst,” (583). He says immediately afterwards:

When you reflect upon what I tell you in the depths of your heart, you profit more than if you had read many books. Oh, if souls would only want to listen to My voice when I am speaking in the depths of their hearts, they would reach the peak of holiness in a short time (584).

Prayer is our most valuable source of knowledge and wisdom. Not the news, not television, not books, or even our friends and family. The more we come to Christ in silent prayer and learn to remain in communication with Him throughout the day, the more He can fill us with the wisdom and the grace we need to endure life’s trials and temptations.

It’s true that Christ wants us to rely entirely upon Him for our sustenance. But that’s not all. He wants us to thirst for one another, too. When we realize how much we need one another, we’ll want to teach them about the Gospel too. Jesus wants everyone to learn the truth about themselves and about Him.

Elsewhere in the Diary, Jesus tells St. Faustina:

I thirst. I thirst for the salvation of souls. Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners (1032). 

God created us to need one another, to rely upon one another. Amidst these troubled times, together we need to rely evermore upon Christ, that He might continue to feed us the truth — about the world, about ourselves, and about Him. When we grow in the wisdom of God together, there’s no trial or temptation we need to fear.

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Image: Cason Asher on Unsplash

LAMDVD

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