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Showing posts with the label Samaritan Woman

Reflection for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

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Fr. Charles Irvin Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 Who’s in, and who’s out? That’s a question that cuts through so many areas in our lives these days especially in this political season. Here are a few for instance: What do the opinion polls tell us about the standings of those who are running for the presidency of the United States? Who’s in, and who’s out? How should we treat undocumented aliens? What benefits of U.S. citizenship should they enjoy, and what should they not be entitled to in our legal system and governmental social service programs? Who’s in, and who’s out? Which student applicants should be admitted and which should not be admitted to our public universities and what criteria should be applied to them? Some Catholics are busily concerned with “Who is a real Catholic and who is not?” Some Fundamentalist Christians are busily concerned with “Who is going to hell and who’s going to be saved?” Who’s “in” and who’s “out”? We hear si

Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 15, 2020, Year A

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Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) 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

Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 19, 2017, Year A

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Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) 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 b

Christ and the Samaritan Woman: John 4:5-42

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To understand how Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well portrayed in John’s Gospel was remarkable, we should first understand the Samaritan people and why they were so reviled. The Samaritans were a mixed population who worshipped God differently from the Jews. While they worshipped the one true God, they only held the first five Books of Moses to be Sacred Scripture; rejecting the rest of the Jewish testament. Also, they worshipped on Mount Gerizium in the Palestinian West Bank, not at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews of Jesus’ time despised the Samaritans as heretics who defiled God’s words as spoken through his prophets. Even talking with a Samaritan would taint a self-respecting Jew, rendering him ritually unclean. The fact that Christ treated Samaritans like human beings was considered scandalous. The Samaritan woman was clearly a social outcast. Typically, women in first century Palestine gathered at the well in the morning to avoid the searing heat of t