Last week we focused on the Transfiguration of Jesus pointing us to His Resurrection. This week, Sunday’s Gospel passage of the woman at the well (John 4:5-42) points us toward Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The woman and Jesus are both thirsty for something earthly and something spiritual. She is thirsting for physical water and subconsciously, for love. (Check out some key Old Testament stories of a man meeting his future bride at a well! But that’s for a different reflection.) Jesus is also thirsty for water, but He also desires the spiritual love of the woman: “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). Our God both thirsts for us and quenches our own thirst for love.
Jesus calls the water that he eventually gives the woman a “Gift of God” and “living water” (John 4: 10). This water can’t be accessed by a bucket or a ladle; you can’t pull it up from the well yourself. Jesus must give it to you Himself. God is the giver; the water is the gift. Water that is given to us by God that is alive is one way that the Church has described the Holy Spirit: “On the day of Pentecost when the seven weeks of Easter had come to an end, Christ’s Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a divine person: of his fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in abundance” (CCC 731).
The Holy Spirit, poured out by Christ, is the only thing this side of heaven that can quench our spiritual thirst. So how can we receive this living water? First, we can imitate the woman at the well and ask Jesus to send us His Holy Spirit: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty” (John 4: 15). We can start our prayers with this petition: “Come, Holy Spirit” and then access our imaginations to picture Jesus pouring the Holy Spirit, pure living water, into our hearts. We also receive living water when we pray with Scripture: “Through his Word, he pours into our hearts the Gift that contains all gifts, the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1082). Each time we receive the Holy Eucharist, we receive Christ’s Holy Spirit within us, indwelling in us. We have many sources of living water, but our part to play is to come to Him and drink: “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him’ He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39).
It’s true that the Holy Spirit had not been sent at this point, but God’s love knows no bounds. He gave the Samaritan woman at the well a foretaste of the living water that day at the well. We know this because she left the well without her vessel; she was not thirsty anymore (John 4:28). In fact, she was so filled with the Holy Spirit, overflowing with excitement and love, that she ran to her town to share the Good News. She became one of the first missionary disciples! She became a fountain of God’s love, grace, and mercy, overflowing with living water to pour out to others.
In Acts 8, many people in the villages of Samaria were some of the first Gentiles to be healed and baptized by the apostles. I can imagine the woman at the well standing among them, waiting to be baptized, Confirmed by the laying on of hands, and receiving the Eucharist, being flooded afresh by the Holy Spirit. Her testimony played a part in laying a foundation of faith in Samaria: “Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman” (John 4:39). Her powerful example of conversion, receptivity to the Holy Spirit, and missionary discipleship can inspire us to follow her footsteps. What is one concrete way you could be a fountain of God’s living water this week? Be on the lookout for times when you can share God’s merciful, compassionate, abundant love with another.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill me afresh with your living water. Quench my thirst for love. Cleanse me with your grace, overflow from Your Sacred Heart to my human heart. Overflow from me to someone who needs to experience You.