By Fr. Andrew Kelly
THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT – MARCH 23, 2014
Lent is for quiet conversation and silent pondering about Jesus within the community’s life. Sunday’s Gospel (John 4:5-42) is about the Jesus conversation, and pondering.
Jesus is the most important person in the conversation and in the pondering. The Jesus of the Gospel story is now the risen Jesus present within the gathered community.
It is a thirsty community that comes to Jesus’ well looking for water that “…will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
But before the “spring of water” becomes available, Jesus engages the community in a long conversation about its moral life (“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands…”); about the community’s worship life (“God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth”); about other topics that will deepen the community’s relationship with the risen Jesus.
If the community is willing to stick with the conversation and pondering, as the Samaritan woman was, come Easter Sunday, the community will find itself joining the Samaritan villagers’ full-throated proclamation about Jesus: “…for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)
Scripture Readings for March 23-30
Sunday
Ex 17:3-7
Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
Jn 4:5-42 or Jn 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42
Monday
2 Kgs 5:1-15ab
Lk 4:24-30
Tuesday
Is 7:10-14; 8:10
Heb 10:4-10
Lk 1:26-38
Wednesday
Dt 4:1, 5-9
Mt 5:17-19
Thursday
Jer 7:23-28
Lk 11:14-23
Friday
Hos 14:2-10
Mk 12:28-34
Saturday
Hos 6:1-6
Lk 18:9-14
Sunday
1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a
Eph 5:8-14
Jn 9:1-41 or Jn 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38
