Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Third Sunday in Lent - Guest Post

A tourist returning from the Holy Land once shared a simple story. One day, he was sitting beside a well in a field when a woman came down from the hills. Slung over her shoulder was a large leather bucket. In her hand, she carried a ball of twine and a much smaller bucket. She tied the twine to the small bucket and lowered it into the well. When it was full, she pulled it up and poured the water into the larger bucket. After filling it, she returned to the hills. A short time later, a man arrived at the well. But he had no rope, no twine, nothing to lower into the well. Desperately thirsty, he dropped to his hands and knees and lapped up the water the woman had spilled. It’s an unremarkable scene – easy to overlook. Yet it perfectly illustrates today’s Gospel. The woman at the well says to Jesus, “Sir, you do not have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where, then, will you get living water?” But Jesus is not speaking of water that quenches the body’s thirst. He is speaking of water that quenches the thirst of the soul. Pointing to the well, He says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” My friends, all of us carry a spiritual thirst. We feel it as restlessness, emptiness, or longing. But what is it we truly seek? Scripture names it clearly. The psalmist cries, “Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul thirsts for God.” Isaiah calls out, “Come, all you who are thirsty.” Jeremiah describes the Lord as “a spring of living water.” And St. Augustine famously reminds us, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” One writer put it simply: “Our hearts have a God-shaped hole that only God can fill.” The great tragedy of our time is that we try to fill that hole with everything but God. We attempt to quench a spiritual thirst with material success, distractions, possessions, or pleasure. But it is like drinking salt water. The more we consume, the thirstier we become. It may distract us for a moment, but it never satisfies. Think of a crying child. We may distract the child with candy or funny faces, but until we uncover and address the real cause of the crying, the problem will remain. Author Charlie Brower once described this emptiness through a friend named Bill, a successful football player who kept striving long after the game had been won. “He keeps scoring touchdowns,” Brower wrote, “but the game is over. He has reached the end of the rainbow, but there is no pot of gold. He has found the buried treasure chest, but there is nothing inside.” And that brings us to the heart of the Gospel: nothing in this world can satisfy the thirst within us – except Christ. Jesus alone is the living water. He is the calm in our restlessness, the peace in our longing, the fullness our hearts have been searching for. My friends, everything else may refresh us for a moment – but only Christ can satisfy us forever. Yours in Christ, Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. Spiritual Director