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March 13, 2023Al Ain.
Bishop Paolo delivered his Lenten reflection for the third Sunday of Lent during his pastoral visit to St. Mary's Church Al Ain. Below is the full text of the reflection shared during the Holy mass.
The meaning of the pastoral visit we are experiencing these days is to help each other renew our spiritual life, follow Jesus to the cross, and participate in the joy of the resurrection. Indeed, renewing our spiritual life means deepening our personal and community relationship with Jesus Christ, who is present in our midst.
The word of God that today's liturgy offers us helps us greatly on our journey of renewal. At the center of everything, we find the Gospel story of a simple encounter: between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. It is an unplanned meeting. It seems almost casual and unexpected. This meeting is a grace. It is a gift from God for this woman who has a very troubled life.
It is a strange meeting because Jesus is a Jew, and the woman is a Samaritan, belonging to the people considered negatively by the Jews. But in this meeting, the barriers fall. The grace of encounter prevails over cultural and ethnic differences. God's grace reaches us through an unexpected encounter.
But what is the content of this meeting? This woman is moved to go to the well because she is thirsty. She needs water. But this time, at the well, she finds this man with whom she starts a very peculiar conversation. Jesus is the first to ask the woman for water. The woman is amazed because a Jew addresses her, a woman considered pagan. It is the first sign that reveals how Jesus goes beyond the walls and borders of nations: Jesus is interested in meeting this woman.
Jesus seems to be thirsty for this woman's thirst. He desires her desire. Jesus wants to ignite the desire for salvation in the woman. Indeed Jesus, in his speech, introduces a new meaning to the words water and thirst. There is the thirst of our bodies that returns always. We drink some water and are fine for a few hours, waiting for the thirst to return again.
This becomes, for Jesus, a sign of the fact that in us, there is a deeper thirst and there is a greater desire. The water we drink daily is insufficient to satisfy this question that dwells in our hearts. In this way, Jesus helps this woman to pass from the need for material water to the desire for salvation and happiness.
Jesus always begins by considering our concrete and simple needs but then takes us on a path in which we discover life's deepest desires that only God's grace can respond to.
We, too, are called to carry out the journey that Jesus takes with the Samaritan woman. We, too, are called to discover the deepest desires that dwell in our hearts and for which we seek the answer.
Jesus knows the heart of this woman. He makes her understand that he knows even her whole life. He knows her troubled history. All of us are intimately known to Jesus. He knows what is in our hearts, our real life, our frailties, and our weaknesses, dreams and desires. But above all, he invites us to seek the living water, that quenches the deep thirst of our hearts. What we need is to be loved. But not a generic and superficial love. We need true and faithful love. The water that Jesus offers to this woman is the love of God, which is a gratuitous love without blackmail. God's love is the love that creates and recreates. God's love is a love that forgives. It is merciful love.
Saint Paul, in the letter to the Romans, tells us that this love has been poured into our hearts through the Spirit, and that is why the love of God in us becomes the ability to respond to love, the ability to love others with the same gratuitousness. Whoever receives God's love in his heart and lets himself be transformed by divine love, becomes, in turn, a bearer of God's love.
The life of this Samaritan woman changes completely, not because this woman tries to be a little better than before, but because she welcomes in her heart the grace of having met Jesus. She becomes a witness of Jesus. She tells everyone about the joy of meeting the Lord.
From this parable, we recognize in ourselves the need to be loved, a radical need that finds its answer only in the love of God. Nothing can replace love. Wealth, power, and pleasures cannot fill the hearts of men and women. We recognize in ourselves this desire to be loved and to love. We also recognize in Jesus the gift of this gratuitous love. Jesus didn't wait for us to get better to give us his life. St. Paul tells us that Jesus died when we were still sinners. Even now, we are sinners, and Jesus continues giving us his life in the Eucharist. The love of Jesus always precedes us because it is a gratuitous love. We are saved by grace and mercy and not by our merits.
Finally, as a parish community of people from different cultures and nations, we must be one family, one Church because Jesus united everyone with his love that goes beyond the boundaries of countries, cultures, and several languages.
As a parish, we must be witnesses of the encounter with Jesus in daily life, living the joy of the Gospel and being Christians. We renew our desire to follow Jesus because he has the words of eternal life. He alone brings us a love greater than our sins, renews us in the depths of his heart, and makes us all children of God. I wish you to be a parish of many different and united people who communicates the joy of the Gospel to all.
May the Immaculate Mother of God, protect our community and keep us close to Jesus, our Redeemer.