Third Sunday of Lent
"God’s love has been poured into our hearts!"
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By scanning this with your phone, you will be able to access each of the Mass Readings for today.
From this Sunday onwards, our Lenten Gospels come from John and focus on very personal encounters with Jesus.
Today, Jesus risks scandal by approaching a Samaritan woman at a well. Seeing her deepest need for healing, he invites her to draw from the well of living water. He is the Messiah she has been waiting for, and her response is a model of Christian discipleship. She believes, and with joy-filled faith, invites others from her community to encounter Jesus (Gospel).
The First Reading stands in stark contrast to this image of faith and surrender. Moses has led God’s chosen people out of slavery from Egypt. Years of exile in the desert causes them to grumble and doubt. They are tired and thirsty. God hears their cry and provides a spring of water.
The Psalm reflects on this painful part of Israel’s history and encourages us to be joyful and faithful; always listening to the voice of God and not hardening our hearts towards him.
The Second Reading is a beautiful letter of love, reminding us that God’s love is forever poured into our hearts. Graced with so much love for us, we must never lose hope, no matter what trials we might face. Filled with this love and sustained by living water, we, too, are called to go out beyond our comfortable boundaries to pour out God’s love on others.
This week, let us pray for the grace to respond generously to this love, and like the Samaritan woman, invite others to believe and be transformed by the healing love of God.
Here’s a text if you’ve only a minute …
The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. Second Reading
He is our God and we the people who belong to his pasture, the flock that is led by his hand. Psalm
Further Reflection
Second Reading Romans 5: 1–2, 5–8
This Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans has influenced Christian theology more than any other. In the first four chapters, Paul demonstrates that we are judged righteous by faith. Here, in Chapter 5, he shows that being righteous, or ‘justified’ brings about a reconciliation, a deep peace and harmony and eternal friendship with God.
Paul focuses on:
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the past: our being reconciled;
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the present: living in a state of grace;
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the future: looking forward in hope to God’s glory.
In what might be seen as a paradox, he speaks of a confident hope. Paul has total confidence because the Holy Spirit has poured the love of God into his heart. Indeed, vv. 5–8 will later lead to the doctrine of the Trinity. Through Christ’s dying when ‘we were still sinners’ (that is, when we did not yet know the Lord Jesus), God shows his unconditional, spontaneous love for us.​
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​Gospel John 4: 5–15 The Woman at the Well
This story is only found in John’s Gospel. It is one of several life-changing personal encounters between individuals and Jesus, such as Nicodemus, the royal official; the man born blind; Pilate; Mary Magdala; and Thomas, among others.
Sychar, a Samaritan town is not found on maps of the area. Some think it is a Greek corruption of Sechem; others the village of Askar. Both are close to the well.
Jacob’s well is about 125 feet deep. It is not, as many other wells in the area, a cistern filled with collected rain water which could become stale and polluted in hot weather. It is fed by underground springs, so the waters remain fresh and cool. This is why at that time people called the water from this well ‘living water’.
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As well as the literal meaning of ‘running water’, ‘living water’ is an Old Testament expression meaning divine revelation or vitality (see Jeremiah 2: 13; 17: 13; Zechariah 14:8). In St John’s Gospel it also indicates the Holy Spirit (7: 38–39).
Most Samaritan women would have collected water in the cool of the morning. The well was a place where they could socialise. The woman of the story may have been avoiding them, perhaps feeling ostracised or rejected because of her chequered marital history.
‘Give me a drink’: Jesus breaks down traditional social barriers. Men only spoke directly in a public place to women who were blood relatives.
Jews and Samaritans: The Samaritans were Jews who interbred with foreigners brought in from Babylonia and Media by the Assyrian conquerors in 722 BC to settle the land with inhabitants who would be loyal to them. They did not recognise Jerusalem as the place to worship God. They worshipped on Mount Gerizim, close to the town of Shechem. They only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament, but were looking forward to the coming of a Messiah. Jews considered Samaritans and their possessions as ritually unclean.
John skilfully uses misunderstanding, irony, and changes of subject to portray Jesus breaking social taboos such as gender discrimination, ritual purity, religious hostility, and the moral stigma attached to several marriages.
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For more insight to this Gospel and a series of reflections see the Season of Lent page.
To aid our reflection on the Sunday readings each week we are reproducing, with permission content from St Bueno's outreach.
if you would like to know more about them or access their guided prayer resources, 'prego', you can contact them via their website
Father in heaven, may the faith you have given us in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother, and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit ,reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of your Kingdom.
May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth. To you our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever. Amen
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Pope Francis, Jubilee Prayer