Many are thirsting for true love and Jesus is thirsting for love. Today’s readings help us to know how thirsting hearts can be united.
In the Gospel today Jesus has a personal conversation with the Samaritan woman. It was unusual for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan woman, especially a woman who was a stranger. She was considered to be a great sinner because she had five husbands.
But the woman's faith and love was destined to grow: Jesus spoke of a "living water" able to quench thirst completely and become "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" in her; furthermore, He showed her He knew about her personal life; He revealed that the hour had come to worship the one true God in spirit and in truth; and in the end He confided to her -- something incredibly rare -- He is the Messiah. In all of these ways Jesus quenches her thirst for knowledge, her thirst for faith and ultimately her thirst for Jesus. And yet Jesus was thirsting for her faith in Him and thirsting to be loved with a pure love based upon respect, reverence and adoration.
In this subtle conversation, He helps her to understand that her thirst for love, was in all the wrong places and His personal encounter with her helps her to discover a love she had never known before.
Through His divine knowledge, Jesus reveals He knew the woman had been married 5 times and was now with her 6th man. But Our Lord helps her find a love not based upon physical intimacy but unconditional love, (divine intimacy) only Jesus, as God, can give. She had been thirsting for true love, but didn’t know where or how to find it, but Jesus reveals it to her. Jesus Himself will quench her thirst. And by her willingness to love Jesus in return, she quenches the thirst of Jesus.
Years ago, when I was an associate priest in a parish, I met a non-baptized woman, who had been married 5 times and who was now with her sixth man, similar to the woman at the well in today’s Gospel. The sixth man was different than her past husbands. He was Catholic, who was married once before and had custody of his children. It took a toll on this woman who had 5 previous husbands. She suffered greatly from the stress and pain of all those broken relationships. She was fearful of marrying again, but was thirsting to be loved in a way she had never known. She told me, she finally found the man, who loved her in a way she wanted to be loved. What set him apart from the other men, was he was Catholic who lived by his faith. He had told her he didn’t want to have relations with her until they would first get married in the Catholic Church. She was inspired by his faith, a faith, she had never known. He was a man who worshiped God in spirit and in truth.
She realized she was not only thirsting to be loved and respected by a man, she was thirsting for something even greater than a man could give. She was thirsting for God. She was thirsting for faith. Her parents never took her to church and she didn’t know much about God. She was so inspired by his desire to live out his faith, she wanted to become Catholic.
She wanted to receive the gift of the waters of baptism, so her sins would be washed away and the Blessed Trinity could dwell within her. When she attended Mass with Him, she began to hunger for Jesus in Holy Communion. She went through RCIA and was able to get all 5 annulments. At the Easter Vigil she was baptized receiving the life giving water, which made her a child of God. She made her first Holy Communion and was Confirmed. Later that summer, they were married in the Catholic Church.
She received all she wanted and even more. Her thirst was quenched by Jesus, through the life giving grace of the sacraments. She came to understand the true meaning of love. And Jesus’ thirst for union with her, was quenched when she was baptized and began to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. The two lonely hearts found each other and quenched each other’s thirst.
Some search from bar to bar for someone who will truly love them, but as the country song goes, “I was searching for love in all the wrong places. Searching for love in too many faces. Hoping to find a friend and a lover. God will bless the day I discover another heart, looking for love.”
Just as wayward hearts are searching to be loved, so there is a divine Heart beating and searching for love. This divine Heart of Jesus beating in the Eucharist is searching for lovers to be united to His Heart in Holy Communion.
Today, let us pray for wayward hearts, searching for love in the desert of this world. May they discover the deepest longing of their hearts, Jesus, as their friend and lover, so that God will bless the day they discover a Divine Heart searching for love.
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