Reflection for Sunday 8th March, 2026

3rd Sunday of Lent 

The Woman at the Well (John 4:5-42)

Jesus, tired and thirsty, sits down beside a well. Along comes this local Samaritan woman with her bucket to draw water. She is surprised that this Jewish man would speak to a Samaritan woman and ask for a drink. The barriers of history and hatred kept the two tribes apart but friendship can transcend barriers. Friendship begins with accepting a person, regardless of barriers.

He then raises their conversation to a higher level. “If you only knew what God was offering and who is saying to you: ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.” She is smart enough to know that he is talking about different kinds of thirst. She wants this living water.

“Prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts for us that we may thirst for him” (Catechism, 2560)

Thirst of loneliness

Loneliness was her first thirst. The village well was the meeting place for women where they enjoyed a chat. She came on her own at midday when all others stayed in the shade. This loneliness was her first thirst. It seems that she is ostracized, and one can understand why, when the details of her affairs emerge. She has had five husbands and now has her sixth partner. Jesus will be her Number 7, always the number of God’s presence, in John’s Gospel. At last, she has found a real friend, a forever friend, a leave-me-never friend.

Thirst for Forgiveness

Her immoral past thirsts for cleansing water. In Jesus she has found someone who knows her past yet accepts her. Later in the story she has the courage to invite the people in the town who had rejected her, to come and see “a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder is he the Christ.” She has found a forgiving Saviour who transcends not only social barriers but also the barriers of sin.

Thirst for worship

Her third thirst is her problem about worshipping God. Where are people to assemble to worship and thank God? Jews would say that it must be in the temple in Jerusalem but the Samaritans had their place on Mount Gerizim. Jesus tells the woman that it is not a question of geography. “God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.” True worship shares in the glory of the Father, through the Son in the unifying presence of the Holy Spirit. Lent is a time to develop our relationship with the divine Friend, Saviour, and Priest.

Prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours

A member of Alcoholics Anonymous once told me that for years he was drinking from the wrong wells. Then he found Jesus waiting at a well to be his Higher Power. The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes the scene at the well to describe prayer. “The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts: his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us.” Then follows a most beautiful definition of prayer. “Prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts for us that we may thirst for him” (Catechism, 2560). To me this was an eye-opener. Prayer doesn’t start when I kneel down or make the sign of the cross. Jesus was already sitting beside the well waiting for me. All he asks for is an empty bucket … empty time and space in my thoughts.

Jesus invites me

My friend, be not afraid. Here, sit beside the well with me. Trust me and relax a little. Lend me your empty bucket and open up your heart to receive my love. Just be yourself. I already know your sins and failures. Accept yourself. I do not ask you to be anybody else. You are so loved by me that I suffered for you. Come to me. Allow me to love you. Open your heart and discover what a wealth you have inside. Do you know who is in your heart? From the day of your baptism the Holy Spirit has been poured into your heart. Your deepest thirst will be satisfied by the Holy Spirit, a fountain of living water in your baptised soul.
Come to meet me at the well every day. Meet me in a quiet church … or your favourite chair … or in reading the bible. All I ask for is your empty bucket that I might fill it with my Spirit of love.