Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

Last week I mentioned that we have five people in this parish seeking the

sacraments this Easter, and we prayed at the 11am Mass for the four of them

who are already baptised: Julie, Joel, Reece and Joanne. This Sunday and the

next three Sundays, we pray for our fifth person, who is currently unbaptised,

Anthony. So we haven’t lost anyone. It wasn’t anything either you or I said to

them.

When you have someone in your parish who is preparing for baptism at the

Easter Vigil, no matter which liturgical year you are in, A, B or C, it says that

you use the Year A readings that year. It so happens that this year is Year A

anyway, but one of the reasons we use those readings is because they describe

situations in which people grow in their faith in the Lord. This Sunday, it is the

woman at the well. Next Sunday, the man born blind. And the Sunday after

that it will be the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

Today’s Gospel starts by mentioning the Samaritans. With so many different

characters and types of people in the Gospels, we can forget who is who and

what is what. The Samaritans didn’t get on with the Jews, and there was a long

history to it, in some ways a bit like the relationship between Catholics and

Protestants in days gone by.

The Samaritans had their origin in the conquest of Samaria by the Assyrians in

the eighth century BC. They were foreigners who integrated with the

Israelites. But after the Babylonians invaded the whole area, took many of the

Israelites off to Babylon, and then they returned, the Samaritans tried to work

with the Israelites with the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, but the Jews

would have none of it. Hence the hostility and the Samaritans then building

their own place of worship on Mount Gerizim instead. Also, a bit like the

Protestants, they accepted fewer books in the Scriptures than the Jews did.

Catholics have 46 books in the Old Testament, whilst Protestants either have

only 39, or include the additional seven but some consider them of dubious

worth, hence the term “apocrypha”; the Samaritans only accepted the firsts five

books of the Old Testament, whilst the Jews accepted all the other books of the

Prophets as well.

So Christ making a journey into Samaria gave Him a chance to spread the word

there, showing that He is there for all races, and the same is true today. The

Gospel is not just for white Western Europeans; in fact, Israel is not in Western

Europe and Christ was not English, although some actors in some films over

the years might have given the impression that he was.

Despite the fact that we’re in Year A, which normally takes the Gospel from

Matthew, today it’s taken from John. John sometimes includes what might

seem to be little unimportant details, but there’s actually often a good reason.

Christ arrives at the well, tired. Even though He was God made man, He still

endured the difficulties of human life, including being worn out after a long

journey in the heat. But in His tiredness He then manages to convert a whole

town – He didn’t waste a good opportunity. Neither should we. We can turn to

the Lord in our weariness. In fact, some people do, and they pray, “Lord, give

me strength!” Perhaps it’s more of a prayer than they realise.

Our Lord uses the woman’s desire for water, and the nuisance of having to keep

going to the well to collect it, as a starting-point for what He wants to say.

Later on, in John chapter six, after multiplying the bread and fish to feed the

five thousand, He tells them to not seek just after ordinary food, but for the

Bread of Life. Do not limit your horizons to the purely natural. Today, He

encourages the woman to seek living water, a reminder to us of the water of

baptism, bringing new life and rebirth into the kingdom of God. This weekend

we pray for Anthony, for his preparation to receive the new life of baptism. A

whole new way of life is opening up before him, including the indwelling of

the Holy Spirit, having all his sins forgiven, and being placed in a right

relationship with Almighty God. So he’s lucky, because when he gets to go to

confession for the first time, he will only have to remember to confess the sins

he has committed since his baptism.

The mission of the Church goes on. We look for new and creative ways to

spread the Gospel. But sometimes, the simple, face-to-face, method of human

contact works just as well as two thousand years ago. And even when we are

tired, God’s grace is still perceived. It’s a bit like when I broke my elbow over

ten years ago. I had been taken into the school staff room and was lying down,

and someone said to me something like, “I’m very impressed. You’ve gone

through all this and you haven’t sworn once.”

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk