TEXT: 3rd Sunday of Lent, March 19, 2017

March 30, 2017 Father De Celles Homily


3rd Sunday of Lent

March 19, 2017

Homily by Fr. John De Celles

St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church

Springfield, VA

 

“I thirst.”

Jesus said these words as he hung on the Cross.

But he also could have said them as he came out of his 40 days in the desert

where he was tempted by the devil.

And he also probably said them to himself

in the scene recorded in today’s Gospel,

as, tired from his long journey, he sat down by a well in the hot mid-day sun.

 

But, while Jesus’ thirst was genuinely physical in each of these cases,

his was also a spiritual thirst that came from being surrounded by sin,

like the very fires of hell burning hot all around him.

The thirst of those deprived of the waters of ever-lasting life and grace.

It is not his thirst, just as it is not his sin, but it surrounds him and assaults him.

 

And thus spiritually parched he encounters someone

who has contributed greatly to his thirst by her many sins:

A woman who comes out in the mid-day sun, the hottest time of the day,

in order to avoid her neighbors:

she is a notorious sinner–an adulteress—

both spurned by others and afraid of their animosity.

 

And yet this is exactly why Jesus is here

—he’s come specifically to meet her, because she is a sinner.

 

And Jesus deals with her the way he deals with all sinners.

First, he goes someplace he knows sinners will be.

For example, he goes to dinners with tax collectors and prostitutes,

and he goes to the temple, to meet the hypocritical priests and scribes.

And he goes to the Samaritan well in the heat of the day

to meet the adulterous woman.

 

And just like he does with all sinners, he waits for her.

Like the father in the story of the prodigal son,

he waits for sinners to return to him.

Patiently, he waits for you and me for years and even decades.

Tired and thirsty in the heat of the mid-day sun,

he patiently waits for the woman at the well.

 

And when she approaches, he is the first to speak

—he will not be silent in the face of sin.

And he speaks to her in very direct and clear tones: “Give me a drink”

Right to the point, but drawing her into conversation.

And right to the point—he quickly confronts her with the truth

Just as he spoke to the Pharisees, confronting them very directly with their sins:

“you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup …

but inside you are full of …wickedness.”

And to the money-changers in the temple, telling them they had,

“made it a den of thieves.”

So he speaks to the woman at the well:

“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’

For you have had five husbands,

and the one you have now is not your husband.”

 

And finally, he treats each person uniquely

—he knows very well that every sinner is different,

and that each needs a slightly different approach.

So sometimes, with sinners who needed it,

Jesus had to raise his voice in righteous anger:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, …you brood of vipers,

how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

And sometimes he resorted even to physical force to make his point:

even making a whip to drive the money-changers out of the temple.

But sometimes, the sinner simply needs

a calm and gentle, but strong and clear, voice,

as with this broken, lonely woman at the well.

This is how Christ is: adapting to the person,

but always with directness and truth,

never compromising or backing down,

and no half-measures.

 

It’s incredible, all Jesus does just to save sinners.

He suffers for and because of our sins,

and yet he comes seeking us,

waits patiently,

tells us the truth, even when that might mean we’ll walk away.

and approaches each of us in the way best suited for us personally.

 

Yet even all this isn’t enough to win sinners back.

Because God loves us so much that he gives us the great gift of “free will”

–he gives us and respects our freedom to choose.

Two weeks ago we read how Adam and Eve made the wrong choice.

Today the woman at the well must also choose.

She brings her dry, empty water jar out

looking for a way to temporarily quench her thirst.

But rather quickly she discovers she has a choice.

She can choose to be satisfied temporarily with pleasures of the world,

and die in sin,

or she can accept the love and grace of Jesus and live forever.

She can wallow in the filth of her own sin,

or she can be cleansed and refreshed in the waters of Baptism.

 

Like Eve before her, she must choose.

But unlike Eve before her, this time she chooses well.

So, unlike Eve, who hid from God when he came looking for her in the garden,

the Samaritan woman admits the sins of her past to God—Jesus—

and repents.

So that while before, she carried her empty jar as a sign

of her dependence on the pleasures of the world

now Scripture tells us:

“The woman left her water jar and went into the town.”

Now leaving her sins behind, she’s no longer afraid her neighbors,

but now runs to them to tell that she has found the Messiah.

 

____

The choice might seem simple and obvious to us.

But if it’s so easy, why do you and I have such a hard time imitating her?

Why don’t we leave behind our sins like an empty water jar,

and then run out and tell the good news to our neighbors?

To choose Christ is hard

—especially when it means rejecting a whole way, or “pattern,”

of sinful living accumulated over years.

 

Consider for example 3 patterns of life

that effect almost everyone in one way or another today

—patterns as old as the story of the Samaritan woman,

and even older than that.

 

First consider the debasing attitude she had toward sex

—she had committed the sin of adultery over and over again.

Today we’re surrounded by this same mentality.

And the incredible saturation of society with immodesty and lust

makes it so overwhelming

that for some, sexual sins become almost like an addiction.

Whether large or relatively small, mortal or venial,

from the way they dress to they way act,

otherwise good people get so easily and unexpectedly caught up in it,

and try as they might can’t seem to find a way out.

 

Look, for the example,

at the pressure on young couples dating and struggling to be chaste.

Or look at pornography—or rather don’t look at it.

But it’s everywhere—and God didn’t make us for this kind of

constant and unnatural barrage of the senses and appetites.

Then there’s the terrible debilitating habits of masturbation and contraception

—both so easy to fall into,

but both so degrading to sexuality and the human person.

The woman at the well knew how hard this type of life is to put behind you

—and unfortunately, way too many people today do also.

 

Then consider the related pattern of life that degrades marriage itself.

It became too easy for the Samaritan woman to set one man aside

and take another

—or perhaps for one man to set her aside leaving her prey for another.

The same is true today:

look at all the folks who so easily set aside their marriage vows;

and then attempt to marry others, without God’s blessing.

Or all the couples who are cohabitating without being married.

—just like the woman at the well with her current man.

 

And finally, consider the world’s attitude toward women.

The woman at the well lived in a time

when men were forbidden to even talk to a strange women in public.

Today we pride ourselves on the progress we’ve made in respecting women.

But have we really progressed?

Then why is spousal abuse and abandonment so common?

And why is the degradation of the female body the centerpiece

of the booming pornography industry?

And why does society degrade the women who want to be mothers,

and encourage mothers to kill their unborn babies?

And why do we deceive women into thinking that contraception

will somehow give them greater freedom,

when in fact the exact opposite is true.

The woman at the well knew how it was to be trapped like this,

and so do many here today.

 

____

Most of us don’t get to see Jesus face to face, in the flesh,

like the Samaritan women did.

But even so, Jesus promised the apostles:

“Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

And on the first Easter he told the apostles:

“as the father has sent me, so I send you.”

…whose sins you forgive are forgiven.”

And so he continues to come to sinners

in the person of His priests and in His sacraments.

In particular, he comes to us in the sacrament of penance:

where he waits for us, speaks to us,

and meets us with the compassion or correction we need to start again.

And in Jesus’ name the priest washes us clean from sin in the grace

that flows like water from the well of His Heart pierced on the Cross.

 

And yet, how few take advantage of this wonderful sacrament.

Think about this:

last week we gave Communion to maybe 3000 folks

at in this parish.

And yet we heard just a little over 100 confessions all last week.

That’s about 3% of Communions.

And a lot of those folks who came to confession

go to confession at least once a month, if not more often.

Which means a huge number of folks just don’t go confession.

 

In just a few minutes Jesus will come to us sinners,

truly present in the Eucharist—body, blood, soul and divinity—

just as surely as he came to the woman at the well.

But remember, before Christ would give the Samaritan woman

the life-giving water, he first had her face and confess her sins,

and leave her life of sin behind.

How many of us need to confess and leave our sins behind

before we ask Christ to give himself to us in the Eucharist?

 

___

Now, of course you only have to go to confession before Communion

if you have a mortal sin to confess.

Maybe you don’t have a mortal sin to confess—but then again, maybe you do.

I’m not saying you’re all terrible sinners,

I just know that sometimes we just get so used to our sins

we sort of accept them as part of us,

like the woman at the well did—until Jesus confronted her with the truth.

That’s why I made that purple pamphlet that’s all around the church,

the Guide to a Good Confession and Examination of Conscience,

to help us to stop and carefully look at our lives,

and perhaps recognize the sins we’ve simply come to ignore or accept.

 

But, even if you don’t have a mortal sin to confess,

why wouldn’t you want to go to confession

to be washed clean from all your sins—even venial?

To make a brand new fresh start on life?

Why wouldn’t you want to take the time to examine your conscience well

and humbly confess your sins to Christ,

and really commit to live the life He calls you to?

And more importantly,

why wouldn’t you go just to receive the grace poured out on you

in the sacrament?

Remember, it’s not just the priest in the confessional

—Christ himself is waiting,

like he waited for the Samaritan woman at the well.

 

____

But in both of these sacraments, as in all things, he needs us to choose.

We can come to confession or not, we can make a good confession or not.

We can choose to receive him worthily in Communion…or not.

And we can be open to the grace of both Communion and Confession…or not.

We must choose.

 

This Lent, imitate the woman at the well

and recognize that Jesus comes to us and waits for us, and loves us

—sinners that we are.

As she leads us to Christ,

let us choose to allow him to change our hearts and our lives,

so that we will no longer seek the temporary satisfaction

of the empty pleasures of the world,

waiting to die in the thirst of our sins,

but instead choose to let Christ fill us to overflowing

with the waters of everlasting life,

and live in his love—now and forever.