Moses almost fell out with God for the sake of the people and with the people for God’s sake. The dilemma faced by the most important prophet of the Old Testament is palpable in the First Reading (Ex 17: 3-7): ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’

It’s no doubt lonely at the top—if we venture to do things alone! Moses had God on his side. He saw God face to face and heard Him more easily than he could humour the fickle-minded and ungrateful Israelites. Here was a man who had led them out of an oppressive land, across the Red Sea, and into freedom; yet his countrymen pined for Egypt’s fleshpots!

However, God did not give up. He knew that doubting pointed to seeking. He commanded Moses to strike the rock, and abundant water would be found to quench the people’s physical thirst. He declared the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai for their moral guidance. And one day, there would be a New Moses issuing a new Commandment of Love, and blood and water would come forth from His heart wounded by a lance on Mount Calvary.

In the Gospel (Jn 4: 5-42), Jesus offers the Samaritan woman the water of eternal life. At first, she mistook this water for the sparkling water of Jacob’s well that Jesus had asked for. When Jesus dispelled that doubt, she went to town, exclaiming, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ Obviously, open as she was to divine grace, she welcomed the Word of God.

Meanwhile, Christ’s disciples kept urging Him to eat and satisfy His bodily need; they failed to see the significance of what He had said: ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know.’ What a far cry from the Samaritan woman who had understood the Lord. Therefore, the perceptive St Augustine sees in her the figure of the Church that was about to be founded. The fact that it took a Samaritan woman to proclaim Jesus as the much-awaited Christ shows that no one is a prophet in their own land and that the Church is destined to attract the whole world!

The Bishop of Hippo has this to say of today’s Gospel passage: ‘The things spoken there are great mysteries, and the similitudes of great things; feeding the hungry, and refreshing the weary soul.’[1] Indeed, his interpretations of the Lord’s weariness, the sixth hour, the five husbands, the fountain and the well, the living water, the harvest and the labourers and, of course, the woman herself are all of great benefit.

God promises to reveal to us the treasures of His love by degrees, and Jesus did the same to the Samaritan woman. He is the Bread and Water of Life, and woe to those who do not believe it. We, who are heirs to the Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition, should not go by new-fangled notions; when we have the Living Bread and Water, what use are sensory delights? And is it not downright stupid for us, who already know the Saviour of the World, to dip into the weird world of petty godmen, false prophets, or cult leaders who go about ruining souls?

Let us, then, turn a new leaf. Let us harden not our hearts but praise and thank God, bow down in worship, and kneel before Him who made us (cf. Ps 94: 2, 6-7). Let us pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts and be sure, as St Paul teaches in the Second Reading (Rom 5: 1-2, 5-8) that ‘since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ’

What does it mean to be ‘justified by faith’? It means receiving God’s grace to be cleansed of sin and be inwardly sanctified, starting at baptism. When we are convinced of and grateful for this immense blessing, we too will go forth, give witness, and proclaim that Jesus is Lord. What a grace it is to have a God who cares for all our needs. The Living Water fully quenches our thirst.

[1] St Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Tractate XV, § 1. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf107/cache/npnf107.pdf

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