Samaria Is Not so Far Away

Samaria Is Not so Far Away

The car door swings shut with a thud. A teenager shoves both hands deep into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. He turns and strides slowly across the parking lot while the church spire stretches high above. Two more thuds follow in quick succession as his younger sister and father exit the car. They follow the teen’s swaying path. The distance between them speaks volumes as they make their way across the asphalt. They climb the steps in the ritual Sunday morning trek to the church door. They have just finished the all-too-familiar pre-Mass argument about “going” or “not going” to church. The father’s ultimatums filled the air in response to his son’s complaints. After the grimly quiet car ride, they embark on this forced march to church.
Of course they keep secret their yelling and arguing. No one hears it except them. They believe they are the only family that struggles and yells at one another. The father strides the last few steps to the heavy door and wonders how things went wrong. Why do we fight? Why do things have to be so tense? Isn’t it enough that I have to work two jobs, and my wife works weekends to make ends meet? Why can’t my family be more like other families who smile and seem so well put-together? The car doors will slam again in less than an hour ... if we are lucky.
Guilt, habit, fear, pain, self-improvement—curiously enough, the reasons some people attend church are the same reasons other people give for not going to church. The woman of Samaria is very familiar with guilt, habits, fear, and pain. She is familiar with our excuses because she has tried them all.
The reasons do deepen, of course. What are our reasons for attending Mass? Perhaps we want to set a good example for our children. Perhaps we have noticed we feel more calm and even more centered, if only for a short while, after Mass. Perhaps in church, we feel closer to obtaining something that seems missing in our lives. We come because we live the good example of our parents, or because we have made a long search and know intuitively that this is where we are meant to be. Perhaps the prayers of our parents have escorted us in, or the intercession of a saint. And, possibly, beneath all the seemingly superficial, mixed motives, we hear a distant echo of “something more” just behind the door.
The questions about practice of the faith all have to do with Catholic identity. What does our Catholic identity means to us? Is it that we all do the same thing? Or that we make the same gestures, believe the same basics or live in the same parish? Why do we attend Mass on Sunday? How do we maintain our Catholic identity through the week? Yet, we also are aware of the painful parts of our history. Catholic identity is a rallying point for some, while others seek to dismiss it as a diagnosis. As we examine our Catholic identity, we cannot simply rely on ourselves or the opinions of others. We must turn to the Holy Spirit. He acts in us in a way similar to that of a chiropractor who adjusts a person’s spine. The Holy Spirit assesses the broad range of our Catholic posture, and applies pressure and relief at various places in various degrees, realigning the familiar patterns we have adopted.
Today, so many of us are like the Samaritan woman. She came to draw water from the well. We also come to draw water from our faith lives. In the midst of our daily activities we maintain a general belief in God. We have participated in a more or less steady manner in religious ceremonies. Yet, so often, we regard religion as simply a private ceremonial event with no immediate relation to our lives during the rest of the week. Religion has become compartmentalized. We have drifted into understanding faith as a purely private matter.
As in the passage of the Samaritan woman, Jesus emerges during the hardest part, in the intense and oppressive heat of our lives. Yet sometimes we miss him. We may have passed him by dozens of times, or ignored him, or been drawn in another direction by failure, self-pity, drugs, alcohol, or indifference. Yet, Jesus waits. And one day he looks up and asks us for a drink.

This week's Strength for the Week excerpted from Living the Beatitudes