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Third Sunday of Lent (A)

March 08, 2026

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Collect

O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness,
who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving
have shown us a remedy for sin,
look graciously on this confession of our lowliness,
that we, who are bowed down by our conscience,
may always be lifted up by your mercy.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (RM)

First Reading Exodus 17:3-7

In the wilderness the people thirsted for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 The Lord said to Moses “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and test

Responsorial Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9

R/. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Second Reading Romans 5:1-2, 5-8

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Acclamation before the Gospel cf. Jn 4:42, 15

Gospel John 4:5-15, 39-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to 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?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered 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 no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his children and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. 19 I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 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 is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called the Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus. 40 So when they 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 what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”

Catena Nova

Observe her zeal and wisdom. She came to draw water, and when she had lighted upon the true Well, ... For what the Apostles did, that, after her ability, did this woman also. They when they were called, left their nets; she of her own accord, without the command of any, leaves her water pot, and winged by joy performs the office of Evangelists. And she calls not one or two, as did Andrew and Philip, but having aroused a whole city and people, so brought them to Him…. Observe too how prudently she speaks; she said not, Come and see the Christ, but with the same condescension by which Christ had netted her she draws the men to Him; Come, she says, see a Man who told me all that ever I did. She was not ashamed to say that He told me all that ever I did. Yet she might have spoken otherwise, Come, see one that prophesies; but when the soul is inflamed with holy fire, it looks then to nothing earthly, neither to glory nor to shame, but belongs to one thing alone, the flame which occupies it… Do you see the wisdom of the woman? She knew, she knew certainly that having but tasted that Well, they would be affected in the same manner as herself. Yet any one of the grosser sort would have concealed the reproof which Jesus had given; but she parades her own life, and brings it forward before all men, so as to attract and capture all. (St. John Chrysostom)

A woman came. She is a symbol of the Church not yet made righteous. Righteousness follows from the conversation. She came in ignorance, she found Christ, and he enters into conversation with her. Let us see what it is about, let us see why a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Samaritans did not form part of the Jewish people: they were foreigners. The fact that she came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race from the Jews. We must then recognize ourselves in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach us what was to come. (St. Augustine of Hippo)

Blessed are you, O woman, drawer of ordinary water, who turned out to be a drawer of living water. You found the treasure, the Source from whom a flood of mercies flows. The spring had dried up, but it broke through to you and gave you to drink. He was poor, but he asked in order to enrich you. The Glorious Fount, He who was sitting at the well as Giver of drink to all, flows to each according to His will: different springs according to those who drink. From the well a single drink comes up each time for those who sup, but the Living Fount lets distinct blessings flow to distinct people. Blessed are you to whom he gave living water to drink, and you did not thirst again, as you said. For he called the truth “living water,” since all who hear it will not thirst again. Blessed are you who learned the truth and did not thirst; for one is the Messiah, and there is no more. Blessed are you, O woman, for not suppressing your judgement about what you discovered. Your love was zealous to share your treasure with your city. You left behind your pitcher, but filled with understanding you gave your people to drink. In you, O woman, I see a wonder as great as Mary! For she, from within her womb, in Bethlehem brought forth his body as a child, but you by your mouth made him manifest as an adult in Shechem. Blessed are you, woman, Who brought forth by your mouth light for those in darkness. Mary, the thirsty land in Nazareth, conceived our Lord by her ear. You too, O woman thirsting for water, conceived the Son by your hearing. Blessed are your ears that drank the source that gave drink to the world. Mary planted him in the manger, but you planted him in the ears of his hearers. Your voice, O woman, brought forth first fruit, before even the apostles, announcing the Messiah. The apostles were forbidden to announce him among pagans and Samaritans. Blessed is your mouth that he opened and confirmed. Blessed are you, O woman (St. Ephraim the Syrian)

Fountains of living water! The biblical symbol par excellence, proper to a harsh, dry, Middle Eastern land, of human desire absolutely fulfilled, without frustration, running over, harmonious and peaceable. It is this same fountain which Jesus had offered to the woman at the well of Samaria, instead of the water which does not satisfy: ‘The one who drinks of the water which I shall give will never more be thirsty: for the water that I shall give will become in that person a spring of water welling up into life without end.’ (John 4:14) The fixing of the mind on the things that are above has as its end to recreate in us a pacific imitative desire which does not know frustration, but whose longing, viscerally moved, is to participate actively, by creating the wedding banquet of the Lamb in the midst of this world, in God’s creative vivaciousness, utterly incapable of frustration. (James Alison)

Christ said one day to the Samaritan woman that the Father seeks true adorers in spirit and truth. To give joy to his heart, let us be these true adorers. Let us adore him in spirit, that is, with our hearts and our thoughts fixed on him, and our mind filled with his knowledge imparted by the light of faith. Let us adore him in truth, that is, by our works, for it is above all by our actions that we show we are true: this is to do always what is pleasing to the Father, whose children we are. And finally, let us adore through Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ, for he alone is the true Adorer in spirit and truth. (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

“I am he, the one who is speaking with you”. At noon I was talking with the Samaritan woman. The hour of grace rang for her and she said to me at the well of Jacob: I know there is a Messiah coming, and I said: I who speak to you am he. Her heart was enlightened with grace and through my humanity she recognized my divinity and adored it filled with love and hope. I am also the one who speaks to you today. I have looked for you to the point of exhaustion in the highways and byways of the world. It is your Jesus, who comes close to you in this consecrated Host. I am he who comes to ask, as I asked the Samaritan woman, to give me to drink a little of the water of your contrition and your tears to quench my thirst. Your Jesus asks for this small alms. Will you deny it? If you would only recognize the gift of God! If you could understand my predilection for you. If you were only able to comprehend the infinite love with which I follow you everywhere. If you could see my fervent desire to do you good. If you could see with your eyes the mountain of graces that I have bought with my blood and that hang over you, longing for you to open your heart to receive them. If you would only appreciate my cross, the secrets that it hides and the delights that God has reserved for the moment that you embrace them with love. If you could understand who it is who says to you: Give me to drink. Listen! Hear! This is the hour of your salvation. I am the one who speaks, who wants to pardon you, who comes to you with all the tenderness of your Savior. Come! I am here! (Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida)

Jesus is the response to our thirst. As he suggested to the Samaritan woman, the encounter with him stirs in the depths of each person “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” ( Jn 4:14)…. According to custom, he ought to have simply ignored that Samaritan woman; instead, Jesus speaks with her, listens to her, and shows her respect – without a hidden agenda and without disdain. How many people seek in the Church this same sensitivity, this availability! And how beautiful it is when we lose track of time in order to give attention to the person we are encountering, as we see in this passage. Jesus was so spiritually nourished by God’s desire to reach people on the deepest levels that he even forgot to eat (cf. Jn 4:34). Thus, the Samaritan woman becomes the first of many female evangelizers. Because of her testimony, many from her village of despised and rejected people came to meet Jesus, and also in them faith bubbled forth like pure water. (Pope Leo XIV)

Homily

She was no doubt avoiding those accusing eyes — the judgment of other women who came to the well at the normal time — early in the morning before the heat of day — to draw the water for the day. But for her it was a dangerous time, so she came alone knowing it was safe. Except for today.

And perhaps for us too. For we might attach another meaning to "about noon" — though with the same level of risk. For the noontime of life, when the sun has reached it peak before its slow but steady decline can well be a metaphor for our own lives. As psychoanalyst Carl Jung who said,

Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie. (Collected Works 8:784)

So she not only comes to the well at noon, but she's also tired of this daily chore. And that fatigue which made the woman eager for Jesus to give her water so she may not be thirsty or have to keep coming there to draw water (cf. G), that malaise could also represent the times when we've grown tired of routine, of the "same-old, same-old," when life as usual just doesn't provide the same fulfillment it once did: the lie that Jung mentions.

And so the depth of Jacob's can signify those parts of us that remain difficult to reach, hidden in murky darkness, often inaccessible. For "water," says Jung, "is the commonest symbol for the unconscious…. which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness…[and] hides living water" (CW 9i:40,50). In other words, the forgotten, repressed, and undeveloped parts of ourselves — the inner Samaritan we often reject — that takes effort to reach as the sundial advances.

But we need help to access those depths. Like the Samaritan woman did to slake her thirst with a new kind of water. For as Jung continues, "In the end one has to admit that there are problems which one simply cannot solve on one’s own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of being honest, truthful, and in accord with reality" (44). That's what Jesus did when he told the woman everything she has ever done (G; Long form). We need honest self-assessment if we're going to overcome the malaise when life no longer works. As Jung insists,

Whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face. This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. (ibid, 43)

For myself, only Christ provides that level of scrutiny. That's what all kinds of people have also found this Lent: the catechumens — a record number in many places — who have entered the final stages of preparation for their baptism. For three weeks, beginning today, the Scrutinies are celebrated to purify and encourage their impending rebirth. On this Sunday they will hear words such as,

Lord Jesus, you are the fountain for which they thirst, you are the Master whom they seek. In your presence they dare not claim to be without sin, for you alone are the Holy One of God. They open their hearts to you in faith, they confess their faults and lay bare their hidden wounds. In your love free them from their infirmities, heal their sickness, quench their thirst, and give them peace. In the power of your name, which we call upon in faith, stand by them now and heal them. Rule over that spirit of evil, conquered by your rising from the dead. Show your elect the way of salvation in the Holy Spirit, that they may come to worship the Father in truth, for you live and reign for ever and ever.

Remember, however, we are all "catechumens" during Lent as prepare to renew our own baptismal promises during on Easter. It's the time when, as Jung observed, of those who drink from the well of living water,

….you are now more inclined to give heed to a helpful idea or intuition, or to notice thoughts which had not been allowed to voice themselves before. Perhaps you will pay attention to the dreams that visit you at such moments, or will reflect on certain inner and outer occurrences that take place just at this time. If you have an attitude of this kind, then the helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man’s nature can come awake and intervene, for helplessness and weakness are the eternal experience and the eternal problem of mankind. To this problem there is also an eternal answer, otherwise it would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that remains is what you could still do if only you knew it. But how much do we know of ourselves? Precious little, to judge by experience. Hence there is still a great deal of room left for the unconscious. Prayer, as we know, calls for a very similar attitude and therefore has much the same effect. (ibid. 44)

So allow Lent to scrutinize you as well. Like the woman of Samaria did when she met the Giver of Living Water from which we drank at the Fountain of new life on the day of our baptism. So that we can reach unsuspected depths — things yet hidden in heaven — that we celebrate in this Eucharist so what is being brought about us in mystery may come to true completion (Prayer after Communion). Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Pastoral note from The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church; Pontifical Biblical Commission; April 23, 1996, D3]

Psychology and theology continue their mutual dialogue. The modern extension of psychological research to the study of the dynamic structures of the subconscious has given rise to fresh attempts at interpreting ancient texts, including the Bible. Whole works have been devoted to the psychoanalytic interpretation of biblical texts, which has led to vigorous discussion: In what measure and under what conditions can psychological and psychoanalytical research contribute to a deeper understanding of sacred Scripture?

Psychological and psychoanalytical studies do bring a certain enrichment to biblical exegesis in that, because of them, the texts of the Bible can be better understood in terms of experience of life and norms of behavior. As is well known religion is always in a relationship of conflict or debate with the unconscious. It plays a significant role in the proper orientation of human drives. The stages through which historical criticism passes in its methodical study of texts need to be complemented by study of the different levels of reality they display. Psychology and psychoanalysis attempt to show the way in this respect. They lead to a multidimensional understanding of Scripture and help decode the human language of revelation.]

Intercessions (Joe Milner; The Sunday Website)

For the Church, that we may be a source of living water for all who thirst for meaning and purpose in their lives.

For the grace of courage: that our encounters with Christ may strengthen us, free us from fear and embolden us to share our experience of knowing Christ.

For a deepening of hope: that the Spirit of God will help us experience the length and depth of God‘s love for us and renew our trust in God’s faithfulness as we face our daily challenges.

For fulfillment of our hungers and thirsts: that we may daily seek Christ who fulfills our deepest longings and never be seduced by superficial satisfactions nor empty pleasures.

For all who face prejudice and discrimination: that God will heal their wounds and help them to continue to share their gifts for the good of society.

For all who thirst every day: that God will assist all who have limited access to water, guide all who are searching for new sources of water, and raise our awareness of the importance of clean water.

For greater recognition of the ministry of women: that we may be open to and encouraging of the ministerial gifts of women who bring the Good News to our communities and to those who never come to Church.

For all who are seeking employment: that God will guide them to the places where their gifts can be fully utilized and where they can grow to their fullest.

For an end to bloodshed in areas of conflict, particularly in the Middle East and Ukraine: that God will lead human hearts away from killing and violence, and towards peace and dialogue.

O God, living and true, look upon your people, whose dry and stony hearts are parched with thirst. Unseal the living water of your Spirit; let it become within us an ever-flowing spring, leaping up to eternal life. Thus may we worship you in spirit and in truth through Christ, our deliverance and hope, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, holy and mighty God for ever and ever. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Chant

Offertory Hymn

That heart you have lost, seek it from your own soul Seek the peace of your soul from your own Beloved.

In sugar, you will not find the taste of Divine Sweetness Seek that flavor from your own lips, from your own breath.

Do not fix your eyes on those who cannot see Flee to the True Seer, and from Him, seek what is yours.

The Messenger said: "People are mines like gold" So go, seek your own treasure in the mine of your self.

Step off the throne of body, sit upon the throne of soul Pass beyond the heavens, seek your own Saturn.

The lightning that struck your heart and stole your rest Seek that flash within your rain-like tears.

The miraculous bag of plenty is your very being Whatever you desire, seek it in your own sack.

O You, the Pure Signless One, from whom shall I seek Your sign? You, Yourself, seek me out.. Seek me with Your Grace.

Communion Chant

Closing Hymn

Like a deer that yearns for running streams
So my soul is yearning for God.

My soul is thirsting for God
The God of my life.
When can I see the face of my God?
My tears have become my bread
By night and by day.
I hear it said
Where is your God?

Deep is calling on deep
In the roar of waters.
Your torrents and waves
Have swept over me.
With cries that pierce me through to the heart
They revile me.
Saying to me
Where is your God?

By day the Lord will send His kindness and love.
By night I will sing praise to my God.
So why are you cast down my soul
Why groan within me? Hope in God
My Savior and God.
Hope in God my Savior and God.

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