8 MARCH – FRIDAY IN THE THIRD WEEK OF LENT

Lesson – Numbers xx. 2‒13

In those days the children of Israel came together against Moses and Aaron, and making a sedition they said: “Give us water to drink.” And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant and fell flat on the ground, and cried to the Lord and said: “O Lord God, bear the cry of this people and open to them your treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur.” And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Take the rod and assemble the people together, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it will yield waters. And when you have brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle will drink.” Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as He had commanded him, and having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: “Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous. Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?” And when Moses had lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you must not bring these people into the land which I will give them.” This is the water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Here we have one of the most expressive figures of the old Testament: it symbolises the Sacrament of Baptism, for which our Catechumens are now preparing. A whole people asks for water: if it be denied them, they must perish in the wilderness. Saint Paul, the sublime interpreter of the types of the Old Testament, tells us that the rock was Christ (2 Corinthians x. 4), from whom came forth the fountain of living water which quenches the thirst of our souls and purifies them. The Holy Fathers observe that the rock yielded not its waters until it had been struck with the rod which signifies the Passion of our Redeemer. The rod itself, as we are told by some of the earliest commentators of the Scriptures, is the symbol of the Cross, and the two strokes, with which the rock was struck, represent the two parts of which the Cross was formed. The paintings which the primitive Church has left us in the Catacombs of Rome frequently represent Moses in the act of striking the rock, from which flows a stream of water, and a glass found in the same Catacombs bears an inscription telling us that the first Christians considered Moses as the type of Saint Peter, who in the New Covenant opened to God’s people the fountain of grace when he preached to them on the day of Pentecost, and gave also to the Gentiles to drink of this same water when he received Cornelius the centurion into the Church. This symbol of Moses striking the rock, and the figures of the Old Testament, which we have already come across, or will still meet with, in the Lessons given by the Church to the Catechumens — are not only found in the earliest frescoes of the Roman Catacombs, but we have numerous proofs that they were represented in all the Churches both of the East and West. Up to the thirteenth century and even later, we find them in the windows of our Cathedrals, and in the traditional form or type which was given to them in the early times. It is to be regretted, that these Christian symbols, which were so dear to our Catholic forefathers should now be so forgotten, as to be almost treated with contempt. Let us love them, and, by the study of the holy liturgy, let us return to those sacred traditions which inspired our ancestors with heroic faith, and made them undertake such grand things for God and their fellow-men.

Gospel – John iv. 5‒42

At that time Jesus came to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar, near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her: “Give me to drink,” for His disciples were gone into the city to buy meats. Then that Samaritan woman said to Him: “How do you, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman?” For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. Jesus answered, and said to her: “If you knew the gift of God, and who he is that said to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you perhaps would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him: “ Sir, you have nothing in which to draw, and the well is deep. From where then have you living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his children, and his cattle?” Jesus answered, and said to her: “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but he that will drink of the water that I will give him, will not thirst forever. But the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting.” The woman said to Him: “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” Jesus said to her: “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered, and said: “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her: “You have said well, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.” The woman said to Him: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore.” Jesus said to her: “Woman, believe me, the hour comes when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father. You adore that which you know not. We adore that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true adorers will adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeks such to adore Him. God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth.” The woman said to Him: “I know that the Messiah comes, who is called Christ. Therefore when He has come, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her: “I am he, who am speaking with you.” And immediately His disciples came, and they wondered that He talked with the woman. Yet no man said: “What do you seek, or why do you talk with her?” The woman therefore left her water-pot and went her way into the city, and said to the men there: “Come and see a man who has told me all things whatever I have done. Is not he the Christ?” They went therefore out of the city and came to Him. In the meantime the disciples prayed Him, saying: “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them: “I have meat to eat which you know not of.” The disciples therefore said one to another: “Has any man brought Him to eat?” Jesus said to them: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, that I may perfect His work. Do not you say, there are yet four months, and then the harvest comes? Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries, for they are white already to harvest. And he that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to life everlasting that both he that sows, and he that reaps may rejoice together. For in this is that saying true: that it is one man that sows, and it is another that reaps. I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labour: others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.” Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: “He told me all things whatever I have done.” So when the Samaritans were come to Him, they desired that He would tarry there. And He abode there two days. And many more believed in Him because of His own word. And they said to the woman: “We now believe, not for your saying: for we ourselves have heard Him and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Our Gospel shows us the Son of God continuing the ministry of Moses by revealing to the Samaritan woman, who represents the Gentiles, the mystery of the Water that gives life everlasting. We find this subject painted on the walls of the Catacombs, and carved on the tombs of the Christians, as far back as the fifth, and even the fourth century. Let us then meditate on this event of our Lord’s life, for it tells us of His wonderful mercy. Jesus is wearied with His journey. He, the Son of God, who had but to speak and the world was created, is fatigued, seeking after his lost sheep. He is obliged to rest his wearied limbs. He sits but it near a well. He finds a Samaritan woman there. She is a Gentile, an idolatress. She comes to draw water from the well. She has no idea of there being a water of eternal life. Jesus intends to reveal the mystery to her. He begins by telling her that He is tired and thirsty. A few days hence, when expiring on His Cross, He will say “I thirst” and so now He says to this woman: Give me to drink. So true is it, that in order to appreciate the grace brought us by our Redeemer, we must first know this Redeemer in His weakness and sufferings.

But before the woman had time to give Jesus what He asks, he tells her of a water, of which he that drinks will not thirst forever. He invites her to draw from a fountain that springs up into life everlasting. The woman longs to drink of this water. She knows not who He is that is speaking with her, and yet she has faith in what He says. This idolatress evinces a docility of heart which the Jews never showed to their Messiah, and she is docile, notwithstanding her knowing that He who speaks to her belongs to a nation which despises all Samaritans. The confidence with which she listens to Jesus is rewarded by His offering still greater graces. He begins by putting her to the test. “Go,” He says, “call your husband, and come here.” She was living in sin, and Jesus would have her confess it. She does so without the slightest hesitation. Her humility is rewarded, for she at once recognises Jesus to be a Prophet, and she begins to drink of the living water. Thus was it with the Gentiles. The Apostles preached the Gospel to them. They reproached them with their crimes and showed them the holiness of the God they had offended, but the Gentiles did not therefore reject their teaching. On the contrary, they were docile, and only wanted to know what they should do to render themselves pleasing to their Creator. The faith had need of martyrs, and they were found in abundance amidst these converts from paganism and its abominations.

Jesus, seeing such simple-heartedness in the Samaritan, mercifully reveals to her who He is. He tells this poor sinner, that the time is come when all men will adore God. He tells her that the Messiah has come upon the earth and that He Himself is that Messiah. It is thus that Christ treats a soul that is simple and obedient. He shows Himself to her without reserve. When the disciples arrived, they wondered. They had as yet too much of the Jew in them. They, therefore, could not understand how their Master could show anything like mercy to this Samaritan. But the time will soon come, when they will say with the great Apostle Saint Paul: “There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. For all are one in Christ Jesus (1 Galatians iii. 28).

Meanwhile, the Samaritan becomes an apostle, for she is filled with heavenly ardour. She leaves her pitcher at the well: what cares she for its water, now that Jesus has given her to drink of the living water? She goes back to the city, but it is that she may preach Jesus there, and bring to Him, if she could, all the inhabitants of Samaria. In her humility, she gives this proof of His being a great Prophet — that He had told her all the sins of her life! These pagans whom the Jews despised hasten to the well where Jesus had remained speaking to His disciples on the coming harvest. They acknowledge him to be the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, and Jesus condescends to abide two days in this city where there was no other religion than that of idolatry, with a fragment here and there of some Jewish practice. Tradition tells us that the name of the Samaritan woman was Photina. She and the Magi were the first fruits of the new people of God. She suffered martyrdom for Him who revealed Himself to her at Jacob’s well. The Church honours her memory each year, in the Roman Martyrology, on the 20th of March.