Lessons for catechumens

In the parish were I am currently serving, there is one adult who is preparing to receive Baptism at the Easter Vigil this year, and two others who will join with her to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation that night as well.  Since we are preparing catechumens for initiation into the Church, we have chosen to use the readings from Cycle A (and not those from Cycle C for this Sunday).

The Samaritan woman

For the past number of months now, Cindy Grasser has been journeying with this community.  She came to us last Fall and expressed an interest in learning about the Catholic Church.  Thus began a journey which with God’s help and grace will lead to the celebration of Baptism for her at the Easter Vigil.  Cindy’s journey of faith is not unlike our own, and not unlike the journey of faith that we hear about in today’s gospel.

John tells us that Jesus had been travelling in the land of Samaria (which was considered a foreign territory for the Jews).  Presumably his disciples were travelling with him, and at a certain point they arrived at the city of Sychar, sometime around midday.  The disciples had gone off to find food, presumably for lunch, and Jesus was sitting at the well, resting.  While the gospel writer would have us believe that Jesus was tired, the irony of the situation is that God is always at work, despite human frailty and fatigue, so when the woman approached the well to draw water, an encounter of great grace awaited.

On Holy Saturday evening, during the celebration of the Easter Vigil, Cindy will approach the font and will be baptised.  Like all of us, she will begin that evening to draw water from the well of salvation.  This well never runs dry; it is a constant source of grace, mercy and forgiveness to southe the soul, but like the woman of Samaria, we need to come to believe that the One who offers us this grace does indeed truly love us.  We learn about God’s love by asking questions, by learning about how God has been present in the lives of others, and by testing our faith with prayer.  We also learn by the examples of faith that have been left to us by the witness of martyrs and saints, and by the lives of those who might be referred to as faith heroes: parents, grandparents, spouses, friends, even children who model for us the life that is found in Christ, and that can be drawn from Christ.

Even if we have been baptised as children, the true nature of the graces given are not always understood or appreciated.  We can at times feel very much like the Israelites who were wandering in the wilderness and thirsting for water.  The thirst for faith that is experienced by the people of our time can at times be so deep that it isn’t even recognizable.  Effective marketing of goods and services can leave the potential consumer believing that possessing a certain object or service will somehow quench the thirst that lies within, but the truth is that no matter what age we are, there is a thirst within us that can only be quenched by a genuine relationship of love, and the most authentic relationship of love that we can find is the one that is offered to us by Jesus when he meets us at the well.

The depth of love that Jesus offers is strong enough to overcome any of the hurts and deceptions that we may have encountered in the past.  In fact he knows, without us having to tell him, about all the ways in which we have tried to find the answer to our quest for this love.  He knows the times when we have succeeded and the times when we have not, and still he persists because even when we may have difficulty believing in ourselves, he is always there to love us, to believe in all that is possible for us, and to wait for us to realize it.

Each one of us has already encountered Jesus in our life of faith.  At some level, we have all experienced the grace of his invitation to draw water from the well and we have heard him say to us I am he: the Messiah who is coming.  Having had such an encounter, and having allowed it to take root in our hearts, we become every day more and more like the faith heroes and saints who have gone before us.  Like Paul who was able to instruct the Christian community at Rome, we boast to the people of our time, in hope of sharing the glory of God … and like the Samaritan woman, we go in search of others, sharing with them the good news of our encounter, calling them in turn to believe, first by our example and witness and eventually because of his word which has taken root in their souls.