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Lent: A journey, an encounter, and a time of purification

On the Readings for Sunday, March 12, 2023, the Third Sunday of Lent.

"Christ and the Samaritan Woman" (1890) by Henryk Siemiradzki [WikiArt.org]

Readings:
• Ex 17:3-7
• Psa 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
• Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
• Jn 4:5-42

Lent is not merely a season, but a journey, an encounter, and a time of purification. Benedict XVI, in his 2011 Lenten Message, focused on these three aspects of Lent, stating, “As she awaits the definitive encounter with her Spouse in the eternal Easter, the Church community, assiduous in prayer and charitable works, intensifies her journey in purifying the spirit, so as to draw more abundantly from the Mystery of Redemption the new life in Christ the Lord …”

This Sunday’s readings reveal the purpose of this journey, the meaning of this encounter, and the reason for this purification.

The Israelites, liberated from slavery in Egypt and saved by the miraculous passage through the Red Sea, grumbled against Moses. Their anger toward Moses, who had been chosen by God to free them, had erupted after a short time in the desert: “But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!” (Ex 16:3). They become perversely nostalgic about their former slavery, saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?” (Ex 17:3). Because they lacked faith in God, they longed for the false security of chains and subjection. Faltering in the journey toward the promised land, they tested God.

Likewise, Lent can reveal to us the fragility of our faith, the frailty of our hope, the feebleness of our love. We might be tempted to blame God for our struggles with sin; worse, we may long for the comfort of sinful habits. It may seem easier to return to the slavery we know than to journey in faith toward the kingdom of God.

But in the midst of fasting from food and other temporal things, God provides sustenance. He is the Rock from which issues the gift of living water. The Samaritan woman encountered and tasted this water, of course, when she spoke with a mysterious Jewish man at Jacob’s well. Her encounter is a turning point, but it does not come easily or without questions. The paradox in the encounter is that while the woman thinks Jesus is thirsty for ordinary water, he really thirsts to give her supernatural life. For, as St. Augustine observed, Jesus “had not asked for the kind of water that she herself had understood, but … he himself was thirsty for her trust and was desirous of giving the Holy Spirit to her in her own thirst…”

Slowly, however, she began to realize that Jesus was inviting her to begin a new life, free from sin and selfishness. Sitting alone with Christ, looking upon his face and hearing his words, she began to be transformed. The process of repentance and conversion commenced, until she was able to give testimony to her neighbors of her encounter.

Like the Samaritan woman, we need to encounter Jesus, to look upon his face, to hear his words. “In that woman, then, let us hear ourselves,” wrote Augustine, “and in her acknowledge ourselves, and in her give thanks to God for ourselves.”

This thanksgiving comes from recognizing and embracing the gift of purification and holiness. This is the supernatural gift of justification, which is the restoration of communion with God, through his grace and mercy. “Since we have been justified by faith,” wrote St. Paul to the Romans, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…”

This access to God is by faith, which is accompanied by the surety of hope and the outpouring of God’s love into our hearts. The three virtues of faith, hope, and love “dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object—God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 1840).

Lent, as Benedict XVI explained, is “a journey of conversion towards Easter” that causes us to “rediscover our Baptism”, through which we were transformed into children of God by water and the Holy Spirit.

(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the March 27, 2011, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)


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About Carl E. Olson 1229 Articles
Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"?, co-editor/contributor to Called To Be the Children of God, co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius), and author of the "Catholicism" and "Priest Prophet King" Study Guides for Bishop Robert Barron/Word on Fire. His recent books on Lent and Advent—Praying the Our Father in Lent (2021) and Prepare the Way of the Lord (2021)—are published by Catholic Truth Society. He is also a contributor to "Our Sunday Visitor" newspaper, "The Catholic Answer" magazine, "The Imaginative Conservative", "The Catholic Herald", "National Catholic Register", "Chronicles", and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @carleolson.

6 Comments

  1. Does the unfolding experience/moment at the well serve as a microcosm of the entire Biblical history? From the ups and downs and increasing encounter in the Old Testament and then to the divine self-disclosure, in history but also above history, of the incarnate Christ.

    The same seems to be true at the moment of Transfiguration where Christ is face to face with Moses (the Law) and Elijah (the Prophets), and they are face-to-face with Him in a split second of conversation stretching across two millennia (Mt 17:1-8, Mk 9:2-8, Lk 9:28-36, 2 Pe 1:16-18).

    The same seems true again with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 23:14-35), where Christ first walks with the disciples (as, too, the Spirit in the Old Testament covenants) before explaining/revealing how the entire Old Testament history is included within Himself, now fully before their very eyes, and then in his consecration of the Host: “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, AND he disappeared from their sight” (Luke 24:31).

    Our limited and linear imaginations, and even our experience in “history,” both can get in the way of the eternal moment of indwelling to which we are called. Bernanos got it right: “Grace is everywhere…” (Diary of a Country Priest).

  2. Thank you, brother Carl for the article and, even more for that painting of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman there at the top! It’s the most realistic, striking and inspiring one I’ve ever seen of that encounter! Lent is the time for a thorough cleansing and washing to be REALLY prepared for that encounter with JESUS and not with an impersonator, impostor or fraud fabricated by our flesh, the world or the Devil.

    Those latter three are the biggest fabricators of counterfeits and are responsible for the biggest and deadliest climate change: calling holiness: “sin”, and sin: “holiness”. As expressed by David Warren in his article “Let’s Talk” in the Catholic Thing, in Lent we also need to free ourselves through Jesus of the Coronavirus-of-the Heart: “We face a worse contagion than the coronavirus, namely silence in the face of demonic assertions such as that the unborn aren’t human, etc.”

    In Lent we must ask and work hard to be liberated from the DEADLIEST thing: our silence and uninvolvement in the battle for our souls and all the precious souls of all humankind for which Jesus died on the Cross and which Lent is all about. Our “new-and-improved” Catholic Political Correctness must be crucified so we truly ENCOUNTER Jesus and not a sentimental, justificating impostor of our sinful, cowardly nature. ONLY JESUS!!!

  3. “Like the Samaritan woman, we need to encounter Jesus”. At times the consistency of our exchange with others becomes tiresome, when much of what’s said is repetition of issues and answers in our troubled Church and world. Water is refreshing.
    Focus on water in this essay has myriad features. When you’ve been without it in a desert you know it means life. And Christ offered her life. The matter of baptism is water. We enter life with Christ taking his name. Lent is that space in time to immerse in this life giving water, which is Christ. What it may mean for some might differ.
    Whatever it may mean for one person or another it’s more than strengthening by discipline, to fast and pray, to avoid sin. It comes down to Christ’s cry from the Cross, I thirst! That thirst is for us. Our love.

  4. To take up our Lenten cross and leave behind our comfortable slavery to sin, for the Kingdom of God, can be difficult; Especially for children of God who expect instant gratification; “Are we there yet! Are we there yet! Are we there yet!” Because Jesus has delayed in His Second Coming, we can clearly see in the ‘Synodal Path’ of German Bishops, claiming to be ‘pastoral’, they are leading Christ’s flock back into captivity and slavery to sin in symbolic ‘Egypt’ aka ‘Babylon’.

    The first anathema, though the Jews refer to anathema as Kareth, was performed by Moses in the desert, when Protestant Israelites wished to return to the comfort of captivity and slavery in Egypt.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kareth

    In the Book of Revelation 2-3, Jesus refers to His Catholic Bishops as ‘Angels’. The Book of Jude talks about “False Teachers”, whom Jude refers to as “angels”, “The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day”. It was, God Authorized Church Leader (angels), Korah and his band, who rebelled against God, and “who did not keep to their own domain”, but wanted the Priesthood too, in order to lead God’s flock back into captivity and slavery to sin, in Egypt, who Moses anathematized to hell in the desert. Pope Francis needs to anathematize fallen angels German Catholic Bishops, as Moses anathematized fallen angels Korah and his band in the desert.

    Numbers 16:8 Rebellion of Korah
    Moses also said to Korah, “Hear, now, you Levites! Are you not satisfied that the God of Israel has singled you out from the community of Israel, to have you draw near him to maintain the LORD’s tabernacle, and to attend upon the community and to serve them? He has allowed you and your Levite kinsmen with you to approach him, and yet you seek the priesthood too.

    Jude 1:6 The False Teachers.
    I wish to remind you, although you know all things, that [the] Lord who once saved a people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe. The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day. Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

    Numbers 16:1
    Korah, son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi [and Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, son of Pallu, son of Reuben] took two hundred and fifty Israelites who were leaders in the community, members of the council and men of note. They stood before Moses and Aaron, to whom they said, “Enough from you! The whole community, all of them, are holy; the LORD is in their midst. Why then should you set yourselves over the LORD’s congregation?”…
    …NUM 16:8 Moses also said to Korah, ‘Hear, now, you Levites! Are you not satisfied that the God of Israel has singled you out from the community of Israel, to have you draw near him to maintain the LORD’s tabernacle, and to attend upon the community and to serve them? He has allowed you and your Levite kinsmen with you to approach him, and yet you seek the priesthood too. It is therefore against the LORD that you and all your faction are conspiring. As for Aaron, what has he done that you should grumble against him?’…
    …NUM 16:31 No sooner had he finished saying all this than the ground beneath them split open, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their families [and all of Korah’s men] and all their possessions. They went down alive to the nether world with all belonging to them; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the community. But all the Israelites near them fled at their shrieks, saying, “The earth might swallow us too!”

    Jude 1:10
    These people, however, not only revile what they have no knowledge of but are corrupted through the very things they know by instinct, like brute animals. So much the worse for them! They have taken the road Cain took. They have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error for pay, and like Korah they perish in rebellion. These men are blotches on your Christian banquets. They are wild ocean waves, splashing their shameless deeds abroad like foam, or shooting stars for whom the thick gloom of darkness has been reserved forever.

    The ‘eyes’ of the Body of the Church, are God’s authorized Church leaders.

    Matthew 18:9
    And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.

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