"We Are All, in a Sense, the Woman at the Well."

Deacon Greg's homily for this year's 3rd Sunday in Lent, is simply beautiful:

In late February, I received an email from a woman in the Michigan. She had stumbled across my blog and she wanted to share something with me.

She told me she was born and raised Catholic, and was educated by Dominicans, but had left the faith when she was young.

She ended up joining the United Church of Christ. Feeling called to something more, she entered the seminary and was ordained a minister, eventually serving as a pastor.  She retired a few years ago.

“My life,” she wrote, “has offered some very interesting and at times challenging experiences. At 72 I have arrived at a point which begs for spiritual reexamination and exploration.”  She went on to describe how excited she was about Pope Francis—a man she called “such a shining example of leadership and love…providing much-needed light in my life.”  For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she felt herself drawn back to the faith that had formed her and that had played such an important role early in her life.

You don’t get emails like that every day—especially from people you don’t know.  I wrote back and told her I’d be praying for her on her journey, wherever it led.  I wasn’t sure that I’d hear back from her. But several days after that exchange, I did.  She wrote to tell me that she had gone to Mass on Ash Wednesday. The desire to reconnect with her faith was growing.  She had made an appointment to talk with a parish priest.

After decades away from the Catholic Church, she wanted to come home.

I thought of this woman and her journey when I read this weekend’s gospel—a story about another woman’s journey, but a story that is very much one of conversion. Like so many conversions, it is a brought about because of thirst.

It is Jesus who asks for a drink of water. But ironically, it is the woman who is really thirsty.

Isn’t this true for all of us?  We are all, in a sense, the woman at the well.

We thirst.

We thirst for love, or mercy, or understanding.  We thirst for justice or peace. Our throats are parched by indifference and selfishness and cruelty.  We feel ourselves spiritually dry.

We thirst for wholeness. We thirst for grace.

And we find it, like the woman at the well, not in ordinary water from a deep cistern, but...

But what?  Go read the rest and find out.  The 72 year old woman pastor makes another appearance, in a quenching way.

Carry on.