Today the Church commemorates the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman. Saint John’s Gospel tells us of the extraordinary conversation she had with Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Samaria. Not only does Jesus break through accepted Jewish practices by meeting with a woman and a Samaritan, but He reveals that He knew exactly what had been going on in this woman’s past.
More fundamentally, however, Jesus Christ reveals to this woman her own deepest desires, and her thirst for God, and He Himself fulfils this thirst. He asks her for a drink of water, but she ends up realizing that He is the Living Water that she is longing for.
The Church gives us this Gospel account in the middle of the Easter season because we too are realizing our own thirst for the Living Water that only the Risen Christ can give us. This past Wednesday on mid-Pentecost we prayed: “Give to my thirsty soul to drink from the waters of true praise.”
Like the Samaritan woman – whom the Church identifies as St Photini – we often do not realize our true need for God. We may even have become adept at lying about who we really are in the same way as she sought to cover up her shady past. A true encounter with the Risen Christ will involve acknowledging the truth of who we really are in order to be able to accept God’s mercy and His overwhelming love..