From: John 4:5-42
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
[7] There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me
a drink.” [8] For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. [9] The
Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a
woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. [10] Jesus an-
swered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give
Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
[11] The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is
deep; where do You get that living water? [12] Are You greater than our father Ja-
cob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cat-
tle?” [13] Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again,
[14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the wa-
ter I shall give him become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” [15]
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come
here to draw.”
[16] Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” [17] The woman
answered Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying,
‘I have no husband.’; [18] for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now
have is not your husband; this you said truly.” [19] The woman said to Him, “Sir,
I perceive that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshipped on this mountain;
and you say in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” [21] Jesus
said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this moun-
tain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. [22] You worship what you do
not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] But the
hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him. [24] God is spirit, and
those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” [25] The woman
said to Him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when
He comes, He will show us all things.” [26] Jesus said to her, “I who speak to
you am He.”
[27] Just then the disciples came. They marvelled that He was talking with a wo-
man, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
[28] So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the
people, [29] “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the
Christ?” [30] They went out of the city and were coming to Him.
[31] Meanwhile the disciples besought Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” [32] But He
said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” [33] So the disciples
said to one another, “Has any one brought Him food?” [34] Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. [35]
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you,
lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. [36] He
who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and
reaper may rejoice together. [37] For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and
another reaps.’ [38] I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others
have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
[39] Many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the woman’s tes-
timony, “He told me all that I ever did.” [40] So when the Samaritans came to
Him, they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. [41] And
many more believed because of His word. [42] They said to the woman, “It is no
longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and
we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:
4-5. There are two normal routes for going from Judea to Galilee. The shorter one
went through the city of Samaria; the other, which followed the Jordan, was lon-
ger. Jesus took the Samaria route, perhaps not just because it was shorter and
busier but also to have a chance of preaching to the Samaritans. When He was
approaching Samaria, near Sychar, the present-day El ‘Askar, at the foot of
Mount Ebal, He met this Samaritan woman.
6. The Gospels, particularly St. John’s, sometimes gives us a little bit of informa-
tion which seem irrelevant but really are not. Like us, Jesus did get tired, He nee-
ded to take regular rest, He felt hunger and thirst; but despite His tiredness He
does not waste an opportunity to do good to souls.
“Recollect yourselves and go over the scene again slowly in your minds. Jesus
Christ, “perfectus Deus, perfectus homo”, is tired out from His travels and His
apostolic work. Perhaps there have been times when the same thing has hap-
pened to you and you have ended up worn out, because you have reached the
limit of your resources. It is a touching sight to see our Master so exhausted.
He is hungry too: His disciples have gone to a neighboring village to look for
food. And He is thirsty [...].
“Whenever we get tired—in our work, in our studies, in our apostolic endeavors
— when our horizon is darkened by lowering clouds, then let us turn our eyes to
Jesus, to Jesus who is so good, and who also gets tired; to Jesus who is hungry
and suffers thirst. Lord, how well you make yourself understood! How lovable you
are! You show us that you are just like us, in everything but sin, so that we can
feel utterly sure that, together with you, we can conquer all our evil inclinations,
all our faults. For neither weariness nor hunger matters, nor thirst, nor tears ...
since Christ also grew weary, knew hunger, was thirsty, and wept. What is im-
portant is that we struggle to fulfill the will of our Heavenly Father, battling away
goodheartedly, for our Lord is always at our side” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of
God”, 176 and 201).
7. Jesus has come to save what was lost. He spares no effort in this mission.
The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was proverbial; but Jesus embraced
everyone, He loved all souls and He shed His blood for each and every person.
He begins His conversation with this woman, by asking a favor of her — which
indicates God’s great respect for us: here we have Almighty God asking a mere
creature to do Him a favor. “Give Me a drink”: Jesus makes this request not just
to share His physical thirst but because His love made Him thirst for the salvation
of all men. When nailed to the cross He again said: “I thirst” (John 19:28).
9. The Samaritan woman’s reply starts the dialogue and shows how well she is
responding to the action of grace in her soul: her readiness to talk to Christ, who
was a Jew, is the first stage in her change of heart. Later (verse 11), by taking a
real interest in what Christ is saying, she opens up further to God’s influence. Her
religious feelings begin to revive (”our father Jacob”: verse 12). Jesus rewards her
and she replies truthfully: “I have no husband” (verse 17, omitted); and, seeing
that Jesus has penetrated the intimacy of her conscience, she makes an act of
faith: “I perceive that You are a prophet” (verse 19).
10. As in His dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus makes use of common expres-
sions, to get across teachings of a much deeper nature. Everyone knows from
experience that water is absolutely necessary for human life; similarly, the grace
of Christ is absolutely necessary for supernatural life. The water which can truly
quench man’s thirst does not come from this or any other well: it is Christ’s
grace, the “living water” which provides eternal life.
Once again, taking occasion of human interests and preoccupations, Jesus
awakes a desire for things supernatural; in the same way as He led St. Peter and
others away from their work as fishermen to involve them in the apostolic work of
being fishers of men, He leads the Samaritan woman away from her chore of
drawing water from the well to the point where she desires to find this better water
which wells up to eternal life (verse 14).
13-14. Our Lord’s reply is surprising and really captures the woman’s attention.
Here is something greater than Jacob, someone offering her water that will quench
her thirst once and for all. Christ is referring to the change worked in every person
by sanctifying grace, a share in God’s own life, the presence of the Holy Spirit in
the soul, the great gift which those who believe in Him will receive.
We worry about the future, we are full of desires to be happy and at peace; a per-
son who receives our Lord and remains united to Him as a branch to the vine (cf.
John 15:4-5) will not only slake his thirst but become a well of living water (cf.
John 7:37-39).
16-19. Although the woman cannot yet realize the deep meaning of what He is
saying, Jesus uses her growing interest to reveal to her His divinity, little by little:
He shows that He knows about her life, the secrets of her heart; He can read her
conscience. In this way, He gives her enough to motivate her to make her first
act of faith: “I perceive that You are a prophet”. Her conversion has begun.
20. The origin of the Samaritan people goes back to the period of the conquest
of Samaria by the Assyrians in the eight century before Christ (cf. 2 Kings 13:
24-31). They were foreigners who very quickly integrated with the Israelites in the
region. After the Babylonian captivity they tried to ally themselves with the Jews
for political reasons and to contribute to the rebuilding of the temple, but the Jews
would have none of them. From that time onwards the Jews and the Samaritans
were always hostile to each other (cf. Ezra 4:1ff; John 4:9).
On this occasion, the Samaritan woman, now fully aware that she is speaking
to someone of authority, asks our Lord one of the key questions affecting the re-
ligious life of the two peoples: where was the right place to offer worship to God;
the Jews held that only Jerusalem would do; whereas the Samaritans claimed
that the shrine erected on Mount Gerizim was also legitimate (they based their
claim on some passages in the Pentateuch: cf. Genesis 12:7; 33:20; 22:2).
21-24. Jesus not only answers the question but takes advantage of it to confirm
the value of the teachings of the prophets and thereby reaffirm revealed truth: the
Samaritans are in the dark about many of God’s plans because they do not ac-
cept any revelation not found in the first five books of Sacred Scripture, that is,
in the Law of Moses; the Jews, on the other hand, are much nearer the truth be-
cause they accept the whole of the Old Testament. But both Samaritans and
Jews need to open themselves to the new Revelation of Jesus Christ. With the
coming of the Messiah, whom both peoples are awaiting, and who is the true
dwelling-place of God among men (cf. John 2:19), the new, definitive, Alliance
has begun; and neither Gerizim nor Jerusalem count any more; what the Father
wishes is for all to accept the Messiah, His Son, the new temple of God, by
offering Him a form of worship which comes right from the heart (cf. John 12:1;
2 Timothy 2:22) and which the Spirit of God Himself stirs people to render (cf.
Romans 8:15).
This is why the Church’s solemn Magisterium teaches that through Baptism we
become true worshippers of God: “By Baptism men are grafted into the paschal
mystery of Christ; they die with him, are buried with Him, and rise with Him. They
receive the spirit of adoption as sons ‘in which we cry, Abba, Father’ (Romans 8:
15) and thus become true adorers as the Father seeks” (Vatican II, “Sacrosanc-
tum Concilium”, 6).
25-26. This is the last stage in the Samaritan woman’s conversion: she has come
from acknowledging her sins to accepting the true teaching about worshipping the
Father in spirit and truth. But she still has to recognize Jesus as the Messiah; on
this subject she simply confesses her ignorance. Seeing that she is favorably dis-
posed, Jesus explicitly reveals that He is the Messiah: “I who speak to you am
He”.
These words of our Lord are especially significant: He declares that He is the
Messiah, and He uses words—’I...am He”—which evoke the words Yahweh used
to reveal Himself to Moses (cf. Exodus 3:14) and which on Jesus’ lips indicate a
revelation not only of His messiahship but also of His divinity (cf. John 8:24, 28,
58; 18:6).
27. “During the course of His life on earth, Jesus our Lord had all manner of insults
heaped upon Him and was mistreated in every way possible. Remember the way
it was rumored that He was a trouble-maker and how He was said to possessed
(cf. Matthew 11:18). At other times, demonstrations of His infinite Love were deli-
berately misinterpreted, and He was accused of being a friend of sinners (cf. Mat-
thew 9:11).
“Later on He, who personified penance and moderation, was accused of haunting
the tables of the rich (cf. Luke 19:7). He was also contemptuously referred to as
“fabri filius” (Matthew 13:55), the carpenter’s son, the worker’s son, as if this were
an insult. He allowed Himself to be denounced as a glutton and a drunkard....He
let His enemies accuse Him of everything, except that He was not chaste. On
this point He sealed their lips, because He wanted us to keep a vivid memory of
His immaculate example—a wonderful example of purity, of cleanliness, of light,
of a love that can set the whole world on fire in order to purify it.
“For myself, I always like to consider holy purity in the light of our Lord’s own be-
havior. In practicing this virtue, what refinement He showed! See what St. John
says about Jesus when “fatigatus ex itinere, sedebat sic super fontem” (John 4:
6), wearied as He was from the journey, He was sitting by the well. [...]
“But tired though His body is, His thirst for souls is even greater. So when the
Samaritan woman, the sinner, arrives, Christ with His priestly heart turns eagerly
to save the lost sheep, and He forgets His tiredness, His hunger and His thirst.
Our Lord was busy with this great work of charity the Apostles came back from
the village, and they “mirabantur quia cum muliere loquebatur” (John 4:27), they
were astonished to find Him takking to a woman, alone. How careful He was!
What love He had for the beautiful virtue of holy purity, that virtue which helps us
to be stronger, more manly, more fruitful, better able to work for God, and more
capable of undertaking great things!” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of God”, 176).
28-30. Grace brings about an amazing change in this woman. Now her whole thin-
king centers around Jesus; she forgets what brought her to the well; she leaves
her pitcher behind her and goes off to the town to tell people about her discovery.
“The Apostles, when they were called, left their nets; this woman leaves her wa-
ter jar and proclaims the Gospel, calling not just one person but influencing the
whole city” (St. John Chrysostom, “Hom. on St. John”, 33). Every genuine con-
version is necessarily projected towards others, in a desire to have them share
in the joy of encountering Jesus.
32-38. Our Lord uses the occasion to speak about a spiritual form of food—doing
the will of God. He has just brought about the conversion of a sinful woman and
His spirit feels replete. The conversion of souls must be the Apostles’ food also,
and the food of all those who through priestly ordination are sacramentally asso-
ciated with Christ’s ministry (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:9-15; 2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 11:
27-29). Apostolic work sometimes means sowing, with no apparent results, and
sometimes reaping where others sowed. The Apostles will reap what was gene-
rously sown by the patriarchs and prophets and especially by Christ. And they
in their turn must prepare the ground, with the same generosity, so that others
can later reap the harvest.
But it is not only ministers who have this apostolic role: all the faithful are called
to take part in the work of apostolate: “Since all Christians have different gifts they
should collaborate in the work of the Gospel, each according to his opportunity,
ability, charism and ministry; all who sow and reap, plant and water, should be
one so that ‘working together for the same end in a free and orderly manner’ they
might together devote their powers to the building up of the Church (Vatican II,
“Ad Gentes”, 28).
39-42. This episode shows a whole evangelization process at work, beginning
with the Samaritan woman’s enthusiasm. ‘The same thing happens today with
those who are outside, who are not Christians: they receive tidings of Christ
through Christian friends; like that woman, they learn of Christ through the
Church; then they come to Christ, that is, they believe in Christ through this re-
port, and then Jesus stays two days among them and many more believe, and
believe more firmly, that He indeed is the Savior of the world” (St. Augustine,
“In Ioann. Evang.”, 15, 33).
*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
|
First reading |
Exodus 17:3-7 © |
Tormented by thirst, the people complained against Moses. ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt?’ they said. ‘Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?’
Moses appealed to the Lord. ‘How am I to deal with this people?” he said. ‘A little more and they will stone me!’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take with you some of the elders of Israel and move on to the forefront of the people; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river, and go. I shall be standing before you there on the rock, at Horeb. You must strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink.’ This is what Moses did, in the sight of the elders of Israel. The place was named Massah and Meribah because of the grumbling of the sons of Israel and because they put the Lord to the test by saying, ‘Is the Lord with us, or not?’
|
Psalm |
|
Psalm 94:1-2,6-9 © |
O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the rock who saves us.
Let us come before him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.
O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us:
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.
O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
O that today you would listen to his voice!
‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.’
O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
|
Second reading |
|
Romans 5:1-2,5-8 © |
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory. And this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man – though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die – but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
|
Gospel Acclamation |
Jn4:42,15 |
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!
Lord, you are really the saviour of the world:
give me the living water, so that I may never get thirsty.
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!
EITHER:
|
Gospel |
John 4:5-42 © |
Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?’ – Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied:
‘If you only knew what God is offering
and who it is that is saying to you:
Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask,
and he would have given you living water.’
‘You have no bucket, sir,’ she answered ‘and the well is deep: how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?’ Jesus replied:
‘Whoever drinks this water
will get thirsty again;
but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give
will never be thirsty again:
the water that I shall give
will turn into a spring inside him,
welling up to eternal life.’
‘Sir,’ said the woman ‘give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water.’ ‘Go and call your husband’ said Jesus to her ‘and come back here.’ The woman answered, ‘I have no husband.’ He said to her, ‘You are right to say, “I have no husband”; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.’ ‘I see you are a prophet, sir’ said the woman. ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’ Jesus said:
‘Believe me, woman,
the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know:
for salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour will come
– in fact it is here already –
when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth:
that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants.
God is spirit,
and those who worship
must worship in spirit and truth.’
The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah – that is, Christ – is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything.’ ‘I who am speaking to you,’ said Jesus ‘I am he.’
At this point his disciples returned, and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, ‘What do you want from her?’ or, ‘Why are you talking to her?’ The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people. ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?’ This brought people out of the town and they started walking towards him.
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, do have something to eat; but he said, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples asked one another, ‘Has someone been bringing him food?’ But Jesus said:
‘My food is to do the will of the one who sent me,
and to complete his work.
Have you not got a saying:
Four months and then the harvest?
Well, I tell you:
Look around you, look at the fields;
already they are white, ready for harvest!
Already the reaper is being paid his wages,
already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life,
and thus sower and reaper rejoice together.
For here the proverb holds good:
one sows, another reaps;
I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for.
Others worked for it;
and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.’
Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman’s testimony when she said, ‘He told me all I have ever done’, so, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he spoke to them many more came to believe; and they said to the woman, ‘Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the saviour of the world.’
OR:
|
Alternative Gospel |
|
John 4:5-16,19-26,39-42 © |
Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?’ – Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied:
‘If you only knew what God is offering
and who it is that is saying to you:
Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask,
and he would have given you living water.’
‘You have no bucket, sir,’ she answered ‘and the well is deep: how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?’ Jesus replied:
‘Whoever drinks this water
will get thirsty again;
but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give
will never be thirsty again:
the water that I shall give
will turn into a spring inside him,
welling up to eternal life.’
‘Sir,’ said the woman ‘give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water. I see you are a prophet, sir. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’
Jesus said:
‘Believe me, woman,
the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know:
for salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour will come
– in fact it is here already –
when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth:
that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants.
God is spirit,
and those who worship
must worship in spirit and truth.’
The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah – that is, Christ – is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything.’ ‘I who am speaking to you,’ said Jesus ‘I am he.’
Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman’s testimony when she said, ‘He told me all I have ever done’, so, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he spoke to them many more came to believe; and they said to the woman, ‘Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the saviour of the world.’