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Refresh yourself in Jesus’ living water

Based on Exodus 17:3-7 Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Refreshed, cleansed and coming to faith. Water plays an important part in this Sunday’s readings.

In the first reading from Exodus, God provides water for the Jews wandering in the desert after their departure from slavery in Egypt.

In Romans, Paul teaches we are saved by the grace and mercy of Jesus – generous, loving gifts from God and not something owed to us.

In the Gospel, Jesus stops to rest beside a well when a Samarian woman comes to fill her water jug. Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink.”

“You are a Jew,” she answers, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won’t have anything to do with each other?” Jesus answers, “You don’t know what God wants to give you, and you don’t know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would ask him for the living water.”

The woman is puzzled. “The well is deep and you have no bucket, so how can you reach this ‘living water’?”

Jesus says, “When you drink the water from this well, your thirst always returns. Anyone who drinks the water that I give will never be thirsty again. This water will become a spring inside them and fill them with eternal life.”

The woman says, “Sir, share this water with me.” Then Jesus tells the woman many things about herself that no one else knows, and she believes that Jesus is truly the Son of God. When she tells the townspeople what has happened to her at the well, they, too, come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

The living water Jesus is describing is the life, or grace, that is first poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit at baptism. He continues to fill us with his love and goodness as we receive the sacraments and live our faith by loving and following Jesus.

During Lent, Jesus wants us to come to him for his living water, especially in the sacrament of reconciliation, to be refreshed, to be cleansed of our sins and to be so transformed by his grace and mercy that we’ll want to share our faith – the Good News – with others.