Padre Daniel Izebuno wrote: Dear friends, My Homily for Third Sunday of Lent (A) 2014. WE HAVE TWO TYPES OF THIRST We all experience two kinds of thirst in life, first kind is horizontal thirst. We thirst for, we desire, the good things of this earth: food, drink, companionship, fun, entertainment, a nice house, a good income, success at work or school. Its part of our nature to desire these things; its good for us to do them. But we also have the vertical thirst, a deeper thirst, a deeper desire. Its a desire for meaning and purpose. This desire is also built into our nature. There is nothing we can do to destroy it, just as there is nothing we can do to destroy our natural desires for food and water. But unlike horizontal thirst, our vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by our own efforts. Only God himself can satisfy it. And he created us like that on purpose. This is why even when we have money, success, and pleasure, we are still restless. Our deeper, vertical thirst cant be satisfied by things of this world. As the Catechism puts it: Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness (CCC, 45). The meaning and purpose which alone will give us true happiness comes from friendship with God in Christ, not from worldly success, pleasures, and human relationships. Lets remember to try to satisfy our vertical thirst, then we put ourselves on the road to salvation, happiness and divine appointment. JESUS GIVES A DRINK The Samaritan woman had spent her life experiencing the horizontal thirst. She had had five husbands, the Gospel tells us, and now she was living with another man, and hadnt even bothered to marry him this time. She was coming to the town well in the middle of the day, the Gospel tell us, the hottest time of the day, when none of the other women in the town would be coming to the well. She wanted to avoid them. Here is a woman with great spiritual sensitivity, and yet, she is living a life of frustration and alienation, of loneliness and inner turmoil. She has been trying to slake her vertical thirst, which only God can satisfy, with horizontal stuff: human love, comfort, earthly pleasures. She has learned the hard way that that formula doesnt work. She has learned that she needs a Savior. She needs to find the spring of water welling up to eternal life. She needs to find the gift of God. She needs to discover Christ. And she does - Jesus reveals himself to her, and her life turns around, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. She runs back to the village announcing the good news to anyone she can find. And we know from the Gospel that Jesus and his disciples ended up spending three days there, and the whole town came to believe in him. She and the people of her town had been wandering through a spiritual desert, their souls slowly dying the death of frustration, boredom, and meaninglessness, even while they enjoyed material pleasures and prosperity. But Christ changed all that. We need look no further for the secret to happiness; Christ himself is the rock and the water flowing in the spiritual desert of this fallen world. SPREADING THE WORD Am I like the Samaritan woman when she arrived at the well? Do I already know Christ? Have I experienced his love and grace? Have I tasted the water that springs up to eternal life - the Holy Spirit who has been poured out into our hearts, as St Paul puts it in the Second Reading? Even so, I still have periods in my life when, like the Israelites in the desert, I struggle, I cry out, I get thirsty, and I need God to remind me of his power and his love. But I know where to turn in those moments. I have been justified by faith, as St Paul says, and so we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Today, thank God for that precious gift, of faith - the gift of God that never runs dry. So am not like the Samaritan woman when she arrived at the well. Rather, am like the Samaritan woman after her conversation with Christ. In todays secularized world, am the privileged one, the countercultural one who has met the Savior. I know that no matter what the advertisers say, horizontal stuff will never satisfy my hearts vertical thirst. But so many of those around me dont know that, and so they are frustrated in life, and they dont know why. It is up to me to tell them. All the Holy Spirit needs from me is a decent effort to spread the good news, and he will use my clumsy words to bring faith into thirsty hearts - just as he used the Samaritan womans words to convert an entire town. Jesus is the new Moses, and am a wooden staff in his hands, and he wants to use me to touch the stony hearts of my thirsting neighbours, so he can open within them a flowing fountain of his saving grace. This week, Ill give him the chance.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 18:49:59 +0000
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