3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A
The season of Lent is a time of repentance and change in our spiritual lives. In today's gospel reading from the gospel of Saint John 4:5-42, we hear the story of the Samaritan woman and her encounter with Jesus. The story of the Samaritan woman teaches us the way to true repentance and change in our spiritual life as it gives us the blueprint to our journey back to God. The story of the Samaritan woman points out to us that the way back to God entails: Hearing God’s word, Accepting the word of God and Putting the word of God into action.
The first practice in our way back to God is Hearing God's word. This means listening to God speaking to us in the scriptures, sacraments, doctrines, teachings and liturgies of the Church. We sometimes do not listen to God speaking to us or we pick and choose what we want to hear or listen to. We listen and hear only the word of the world or what we want to hear and not the word of God. The Samaritan woman listened and heard the word of God through Jesus and it made a difference in her life and journey to repentance. Are we really hearing God speaking to us? Are we truly open to hearing and listening to Him in our lives like the Samaritan woman in the gospel reading today? What makes it impossible for us to hear the voice of God in our lives today?
The second practice in our way back to God is Accepting the word of God. This means believing and consenting to the word of God we have heard. We hear God’s word over and over again in our lives, but we do not accept His word. We rationalize about it, misinterpret it to suit our personal ideologies or agendas and even reject parts of it. The Samaritan woman after hearing Jesus’s words to her, accepted it and dashed out to tell others about Jesus. Have we truly accepted the word of God as Christians? Have we as Christians sincerely believed and consented to God’s word in our lives as taught us in the gospels?
The third practice in our way back to God is Putting the Word of God we have heard and accepted into practice or action in our daily lives. Putting the word of God in practice or action means proclaiming and living out the gospel of Christ. This is very important in our lives as Christians because that is how we answer the call to discipleship and this is also the best way to true repentance and change in our spiritual lives. The Samaritan woman put Jesus’s words into practice immediately as she testified to Jesus among her fellow Samaritans and got them to believe in Him. Are we proclaiming and living out the gospel of Christ as His disciples? Are we proclaiming His gospel in our world or are we proclaiming what the world wants to hear by picking and choosing what we like and rejecting what we don't like?<br/
My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to change our lives and repent of our sins. It is time to say "yes" to God and sincerely go back to Him this Lenten season by Hearing His word, by Accepting His word we have heard and by Putting that word into practice in our daily lives. Amen!
