8/2/2019 Homily 3-11-2012a

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Mutual Thirst: Our Rest is in God Alone

St. Augustine of Hippo is famous for many things, but one of his best quotes is this: Our hearts arerestless, O Lord, until they rest in you. This summarizes what we find in the readings today.

In today's Gospel, a Samaritan woman, whose heart is wandering in a desert looking for water like the

Israelites, meets a man, and something incredible happens: the more she gets to know him, the more she discoversabout her deepest self, a process that for her brings trembling, fear, some old pains, and ultimately the peace of

being fully known and still unwaveringly loved. Here in this encounter we see these words from the Catechism

(142) come to light:By his Revelation, "the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his

friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company."1 The adequateresponse to this invitation is faith.

The Lord clearly invites this woman into a relationship today, and she responds, but slowly and in stages.At first, she refers to him simply as a Jew, but then only Sir and later on he becomes for her a prophet. Finally

she discovers him to be the Christ, the Messiah who is to come, who has come right before her. This process

ultimately breeds in this woman a great faith that drives her to invite others into the mystery of who this man is.

By her words, can this indeed be the Christ?, we see someone touched so deeply that she keeps the full truth ofher experience secret, offering others the opportunity to enter into the same life-giving encounter with their God.

CCC143By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives his

assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the

obedience of faith".3

That faith wasn't something that came instantly full-grown for the woman, and neither does it for us. We

have to be guided into faith with Christ. In these next three weeks, we as a parish walk with our Catechumenswho are preparing for Baptism (and our Candidates for full communion), who have journeyed slowly deeper into

Christ and His Church. Are we ourselves making similar progress? Hopefully we aren't in the same place we

were last year. Have we talked with Christ? Have we brought to him our questions and fears? Has he drawn outour wounds to heal us? Have we rested in Him presence, aware the He knows us and still loves us?

Faith leads us to concrete activities which come to the fore during Lent: prayer, fasting, good works of

charity and compassion. As we are quenched of our thirst by Our Lord in this Eucharist, let us beg Him that the

gifts of the Holy Spirit will overflow within us and help us to make these Lenten practices a part of our daily life.

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