More On the Samaritan Woman

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

CHRIST IS RISEN! 

INDEED HE IS RISEN!

 

Pascha - The Thirty-Second Day

More On the Samaritan Woman

 

 

I was reading the commentary of the biblical scholar, Brendan Byrne, on the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Following his commentary, he concluded with an additional passage tha he termed a "Reflection. It is a very concise and insightful application of the meaning of this timeless dialogue for Christians of any time and place:

 

Reflection: The conversation between Jesus and the woman of Samaria begins with a request on his part for a gift of water to slake his thirst. His need for this simple service becomes the occasion for bringing the woman to an awareness of a much deeper need that she has, a "thirst" for life, which he alone can satisfy.

As the conversation proceeds and deepens, Jesus leads the woman to ever-deeper self-knowledge, knowledge of himself and knowledge of the gift he has to give her - a gift so much greater than anything she can do for him. The woman allows Jesus to "tell her the story of her life." Running beneath all the disjointed and unsatisfactory aspects of her life has been a story of divine grace. Jesus has brought this story to the surface in the context of his wider mission to her people.

All this makes the episode such a wonderful paradigm of progress in prayer and spiritual transformation. Spiritual direction aims to allow Jesus to  tell us "the story of our life" in the sense of gathering up all the fragments, the twists and the turns, the false steps and failures, so that we can see them woven into a coherent and meaningful narrative of grace. The Lord can then lead us, as he led the woman, across constricting barriers  of prejudice and fear, to a "worship in Spirit and truth" that is both liberating and apostolic.

From Life Abounding by Brendan Byrne (p. 90)