“Give us living water.”
The great theologian and Catholic priest from Canada, Ron Rolheiser,
has written extensively about the journey of the Christian life.
In that, he maintains that we have a longing,
a natural in-built desire for God;
an attraction that keeps drawing us to God.
It has been called many different things over the centuries;
for example, a divine itch one cannot get rid of it.
Fr. Rolheiser calls it the “holy longing”
and he has written a book with that title.
He talks about no matter what we do,
we have this divine longing inside of us
that we yearn to be complete.
And that completeness only happens in God and in union with God;
and ultimately it will only happen
when we rise from the dead into eternal life.
But on this side of the grave, we are always yearning for God.
We are always trying to be complete ourselves.
Often times Rolheiser maintains
that we search for this in all the wrong places;
we will look for it in money, in power, in goods, in reputation;
and in all these different places.
We end up with none of those really satisfying
until we find God and then we are satisfied.
And when we feel that satisfaction then we feel a little more complete.
It is not just religious writers to speak this way.
Saints have written about it for years.
St. Augustine says my heart is restless until I rest in you.
And that was years and years ago. Right?
In our common era, we even have secular people writing about it.
They do not use religious language obviously!
We even have songwriters like the great U2 from Ireland,
singing that song, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
You know that song?
That is about the search for God.
Bono is talking about how he hasn’t found God yet.
He hasn’t felt complete.
And there are other songs that Bob Dylan has written.
And the list goes on and on.
The challenge for us is to name it right
so that we can search for it right.
In a sense, if we can name it right
then that helps us, if you would, on that journey.
The person who has written extensively about this
is the famous Fr. Thomas Merton.
He is not a saint yet, but I think he probably will be.
He talked about the “true self” and the “false self.”
The true self is recognizing that we are a child of God
but in the false self, we go searching again;
we search in power, in goods, in reputation, etc. etc. etc.
And when we realize that all that is feeding our ego,
and it is not really our true self.
Our true self is that we are a child of God
and that God loves us through and through.
In modern language, it is called “false ego” and the “true ego,”
which is more of psychological language
but again speaks of the same search for meaning.
It all brings us back to the same thing:
we all have a desire for God within us.
And that is why we are all here at Church today;
it is why we are here each week
because even though we cannot always name it,
somehow that is what we are searching for;
that is what we are looking for.
And we do not ever get it completely
but we know when we get a little of it. Wow!
That is the very thing that we hear
in this beautiful gospel today of John.
We will start now to read from John’s gospel
for the remainder of the Lenten season and into Easter.
John has this fantastic way of writing;
he has layers upon layers in his writing.
Today we have this Samaritan woman at the well.
The Jews and the Samaritans don’t talk to each other
but Jesus talks to her in the middle of the day
when nobody should be at the well.
Why are either of them at the well in the middle of the day?
She’s there because she doesn’t want to be seen;
she’s a woman and she’s sinful;
she is not meant to be talking to anybody.
But why is Jesus going at noon?
Because Jesus is thirsty for our souls.
He meets us wherever we are.
That is the point, whatever searching we do
Jesus will go far further to meet us where we are.
We’re searching for him
and he will meet us wherever we are
but we have to have that desire.
We have to have the desire for, as we hear today, the living water.
This is the beautiful overarching metaphor that we find here.
There are different layers.
They are talking about the water in the well.
Jesus is talking about the water of eternal life, living water.
She says you don’t have a bucket.
He says, you don’t understand.
We are talking about living water here.
There is this constant play back and forth.
This is to mirror the lostness in our own lives
that we often name it the wrong way.
We often get it wrong.
Jesus is always talking at another level.
Jesus is always reaching for us at the deeper level.
And the level we are talking about is in our Baptism,
we are given the eternal source of that living water,
which is within us; that is what we celebrate.
Today, we are going to be doing the Scrutinies
with those who are desiring to come into the Church as new members.
That very same language is used; it is desire,
then naming the desire and then searching for this living water.
That all sounds great and is good theology
but what does it mean for us?
What does it do for us? How do we do that today?
What does that mean for us today?
The question is we have to ask ourselves in this Lenten time,
pause and ask, what am I searching for?
How am I spending my time?
Often times, we go into an auto-pilot mode
and we think our job, the money we are earning,
and we just kind of get on a treadmill.
Then we realize maybe this Lent is a time to pause and reflect
“What am I searching for?
And is it the living water?
And if I have the source of living water within me
then how can I live that more, more completely, more clearly?
How can I live that more authentically in my own life?”
This becomes the real hard work.
And that is why we have the three-prong approach to Lent:
Prayer; Fasting and Almsgiving.
It is to sharpen the saw of our lives.
It is to help us with this because it is hard.
I cannot tell you what Jesus is going to say to you today
or what that would mean for each one of you
because for every one of you, it is different.
For every one of you it’s different.
For some of you it is going to be re-evaluating
how you are spending time with your family;
and how much time you are spending with your family.
For some others of you, it will be how much time you spend on your own.
Do you have enough time to recharge yourself?
Have you given yourself enough time
for good mental health and good wellness?
For still others of you, you need to spend time with others;
that you are called to give yourself away
and to serve others in some way;
that you have done enough for yourself
and in what you have going on in your life.
But I’ll tell you one thing Jesus is not going to say;
the one thing he is not going to say is nothing.
That is one thing he is not going to do.
Now we may not be listening, but he is not going to say nothing.
For every one of us, he has something.
Now, it might be to stay quiet, Brendan.
And be quiet and settle your soul.
Take some time for yourself.
Or it might be doing something for others.
But there won’t be no message
because the question is whether we really searching for the right thing.
Have we found what we are searching for?
And are we continuing to search?
That is the work that we come to do here.
And you see, if we do that well,
we discover the eternal source of living water inside of us.
And then, we can give it to others.
It is not given to us for ourselves alone.
It is given to us to be given to others.
And then we give life-giving water to all
we come into contact.
You see, that is that beautiful, virtuous cycle
that happens in our life when we live the gospel
but that requires of us some hard work
and that is what we start here.
It is not finished here; we start it here
and push it out for the rest of this week in our daily lives.
Today, we come knowing
that we all are searching for that divine completion.
We are searching for God has given it to us
and when we find that living water within us
that we share it with others for all to have.
“Give us living water.”
