The readings for the third Sunday of Lent are so rich. We are challenged to trust God’s providence, to keep our hearts open to His love and mercy, and to become agents of that love.

 

Through numerous miracles and wonders, God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. However, at the first sign of hardship, His people doubted Him and longed for their days of captivity in Egypt. How quickly we forget our blessings and harden our hearts. 

 

In Christ, we have received an even greater rescue from our true enemies: sin, death, and the devil. Ensuring we grasp the magnitude and gratuity of this gift, St. Paul, in the second reading, confronts us with our brokenness. “For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6). “Helpless” and “ungodly;” I am resistant to thinking of myself as either, and yet I am both. Apart from God’s mercy and grace, I am hopelessly lost in my failures and sin. Like the woman at the well from the Gospel reading, I have made a mess of my life, and I’m unable to save myself. I imagine this is also true for your life.

 

Our similarities with the woman at the well probably do not end there. She and the community defined her by her sins. Her failure consumed her whole identity, self-worth, and the way she interacted with others. In contrast, Jesus rejects this view of her. At the same time, He does not minimize her sins; in fact, He is shockingly blunt about them. Jesus honestly meets her in her brokenness and offers her forgiveness and new life in Him. God’s abundant love and mercy, proclaimed by St. Paul, is tangibly manifested here in John’s Gospel.

 

St. John could have ended the story here, but we are yet to see a greater unfolding of God’s mercy. The woman then goes to town and proclaims her encounter with Jesus to everyone. She becomes an evangelist to the very people that scorned and rejected her. She is an effective catalyst in their conversion. “Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Jesus because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me everything I have done.”’ (Jn 4:39). 

 

Once a hopeless sinner, she now finds herself forgiven and a coworker in salvation. Her sin is no longer her shame; it becomes a testament to the triumph of God’s love and mercy.

 

This story is true for us also. God does not define you by your sins. He knows your sins and desires to respond with mercy. Our hope is in the Lord, “And hope does not disappoint …” (Rom 5:5). If forgiveness were not enough, God imparts another dignity to us. Like the Samaritan woman, He invites us to participate in the salvation of others — to be His “coworkers” in salvation (1 Cor 3:9). 

 

Christ has blessed the Church with the sacrament of reconciliation, a place where we can honestly encounter Christ at the well and have the “living water” of our Baptism flowing again. It is a place we can cease to define ourselves by our sins and be called children of God. What’s more, in the sacrament, as we lay down the weight of our sins, we receive the grace to conquer those sins. 

 

“God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). God has given us every grace necessary for eternal life with Him. To whatever reason or excuse we cling to avoid reconciliation or Mass, let us cast them aside lest we be like our forefathers in faith, desiring slavery over sonship. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

 

Be Reconciled, a daylong diocesan-wide opportunity for reconciliation, will be at a parish near you March 29. Come, meet Christ at the well.