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March 8, 2026Exodus 17:3-7
Romans 5:1-2,5-8
John 4:5-42III Lent Sunday (A)
3/8/26I think most of us recognize the name: Mother Teresa/St. Teresa of Calcutta. She was born in a city I can’t pronounce in North Macedonia, north of Greece, received her First Communion at 5 yo. and Confirmation at 6 yo. She joined the Sisters of Loreto at 18 in Ireland. Only a year later, she was sent to Calcutta, India, where she taught in a girls’ school, eventually becoming the principal. After 15 years of being in India (even though she was pleased with her teaching ministry), Jesus spoke to her, revealing His pain in the neglect of the poor. It took 2 years of trial & discernment until she established her own religious community of sisters. Once her community was approved—the Missionaries of Charity—she began wearing the blue-bordered sari, a dress reminiscent of local Indian women’s dress with the rosary. Soon, her own students joined in her mission of caring for those dying of hunger and illnesses. Her days began by receiving Holy Communion with rosary in hand to go help the poor.
Today, if you go to one of the chapels of the Missionaries of Charity sisters, you will see a crucifix with Jesus’s words painted on the wall next to it saying, I thirst. This was the message that Jesus had for Mother Teresa, and it’s the message she reminds her sisters every day as they receive Holy Communion: Jesus is thirsting. He said those words while nailed to the cross—not only of a physical thirst for water, but—of His boundless thirst for our love of Him. And, what was He given? Vinegar.
When the Samaritan woman asked Jesus for the life-giving water He promised, He asked her to call her husband. I do not have a husband. Jesus says, You are right… For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. She asks for the life-giving water, and Jesus carefully first has her look at her previous decisions. Five times that she was looking for water in the wrong places, and she is currently drinking water that perishes. Jesus isn’t trying to shame her for her past sins, but He points out to her: You people worship what you do not understand. Those six husbands are the times that we look to quench our thirst in the wrong places.
Jesus Himself dealt with this. He said to His own disciples—after feeding the 5,000—Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life. We constantly go to places that will only wet our appetite & won’t quench our thirst—and we keep coming back to them. But it is Jesus alone who offers/gives us the water that gives us life, joy, and strength (even in our suffering). The true water of life. When the Israelites were complaining to Moses in the desert, ¿where did that water come from but from a rock! And the Rock is Christ. Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
It is pretty clear, then, that we are thirsty—not just in the physical sense that we need to stay hydrated — but we thirst for something that we know this world cannot deliver. Where does that come from? Let’s return to the chapel of the Missionaries of Charity. Next to the crucifix are the words, I thirst. It is God who thirsts for us first! God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Our thirst is a response at God’s own thirst for our love. St. Augustine tells us that “God thirsts that we may thirst for him;” and we meet Him in our prayer/in our willing and doing what is good for my neighbor/in my true love of self.
We thirst b/c Jesus thirsts. Jesus thirsts to meet us in prayer with Him. Not only when we recite our devotionals, but especially when we open our hearts to Him. We thirst b/c Jesus thirsts. He thirsts when we look the other way at the injustices that happen on the oppressed, the homeless, the immigrant, the disabled, the unborn and those sentenced to a death penalty. We thirst b/c Jesus thirsts. He thirsts for our self-care. And not just in the superficial sense of having a nice bubble bath/a golf day/cold beer/going shopping. That’s not self-care/it’s not self-love by itself if I’m feeding habits that (ultimately) cause me harm. Jesus thirsts that I care for myself: my body, my soul, my mind. That I watch what I watch—not just choosing to consume what will entertain me, but to stay away from what will corrupt my mind & my soul.
Five previous husbands and currently in another relationship that is only causing her harm. The Samaritan woman thirsts b/c Jesus thirsts for her, and she is looking everywhere else but Him. We are the Samaritan woman, looking everywhere but Jesus. And, sometimes, all we offer Him is vinegar. We thirst b/c Jesus thirsts for us, anyway. If only we ask for that water from Him, every day—by our prayer, by how we treat others (especially those we cannot stand), and by how I take care of myself—then we will live the promise of Jesus: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in [them] a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
We thirst b/c Jesus thirsts for us.
For your homework, pray with the words of Psalm 42. Psalm 42 begins like this: As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When can I enter and see the face of God?