Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, 2014, Year A
Fr.
René J. Butler, M.S.
O God, I love thee, I love thee---
Not out of hope of heaven for me...
Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance...
Yea, and death, and this for me.
And thou couldst see me sinning!
Spirit, Spirit everywhere. And always more to drink.
One of my
favorite Scripture quotations is, “As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good
news from a far country.” (Proverbs 25:25)
Today,
however, I feel I should quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, every
where, nor any drop to drink.” The first half of the quotation seems apt for
today’s readings. Water, water everywhere!
In their
wanderings in the desert, the Lord led his people to an area where, as we read:
“There was no water for the people to drink.” The dramatic scene depicted in
the first reading follows immediately. Here water is obviously meant in the
strictly literal sense.
Water is
even more prevalent in today’s Gospel. The word occurs eight times in Jesus’
conversation with the woman of Samaria. But here, as often happens in John, the
literal sense is soon eclipsed by a deeper symbolic sense. As we read, it
becomes clear that Jesus is using the image of water to talk about the gift of
grace. Even when the conversation turns to other things, the same reality is
present. Worshiping God “in Spirit and truth” is, after all, possible only for
those who have received the “spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
What about
the reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans? True, the word “water” does
not occur, but the symbolic sense is present nonetheless. St. Paul writes, “The
love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that
has been given to us.” Poured out like what, if not like water?
This
conjuction of water and Spirit goes right back to the beginning of the Old
Testament. Most translations of Genesis 1:2 read, “The Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters.” So too in the New Testament. Early in all four
Gospels we find John the Baptist saying that while he baptizes with water, the
one coming after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit. On the day of
Pentecost, Peter begins his discourse with a quotation from the Prophet Joel:
“I will pour out my Spirit upon all mankind.”
“Pouring
out” occurs as well in another, quite different context, quoted in every Mass.
“This is the chalice of my blood... which will be poured out for you and for
many, for the forgiveness of sins.”
Which takes
us back to the first reading: “God proves his love for us in that while we were
still sinners Christ died for us.” This same idea is expressed in a wonderful
poem attributed to St. Francis Xavier, translated from the Latin by the
brilliant poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It reads in part:
O God, I love thee, I love thee---
Not out of hope of heaven for me...
Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance...
Yea, and death, and this for me.
And thou couldst see me sinning!
The water
of baptism cleanses us. The blood of the Eucharist saves us. The Holy Spirit is
present in both.
The Holy
Spirit doesn’t just make an appearance once a year at Pentecost. Lent is
certainly a good time to open our hearts and minds to the constant presence of
the one whom we call in the creed, “the Lord, the giver of life.”
Spirit, Spirit everywhere. And always more to drink.
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