Reflection for the Third Sunday of Lent
I’m not sure if Magnificat has ever done a “Saint Who?” series of “Saints who had extreme thirst,” but I have a feeling there wouldn’t be too much of a problem in finding enough of them. Some of my favorite saints have died with terrible thirst.
In Peru in 1617, Rose of St. Mary (also known as St. Rose of Lima) died of tuberculosis, and despite intense thirst was denied water by the doctors.
In Italy in 1902, Maria Goretti died of stab wounds after several days of agony. Despite her extreme thirst, she was not permitted water, due to her internal injuries.
Why would God ask them, ask anyone, to undergo such a trial? The mystery of suffering points us to Christ: God became man and did not eliminate all pain, illness, poverty, or evil from the earth, but Himself suffered. In the Gospel reading this Sunday, Jesus asks for a drink from the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, but the next time he speaks of his thirst is from the cross: “I thirst” (John 19:28).
God in His Sacred Humanity thirsted.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s first reason as to why Christ’s Passion was the most suitable way of delivering the human race is that by this means “man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love Him in return, and herein lies the perfection of human salvation.” (ST III Q46 a3) Jesus thirsted out of love. People do all sorts of crazy things for love, but God does what humanity could not have even hoped for by becoming man so that He could suffer and die. Our reading today from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans concludes that “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
What do we do in the face of this love? St. Thomas has summarized what the meaning of life for every person truly is: corresponding to God’s love with love, with loving praise, thanks, and adoration in all we do. Put plainly, the “perfection of human salvation” is the journey of growing in God’s love to the point of fulfillment and overflowing such that death is simply a transition into that same love but without bodily limitations and for all eternity. This Sunday’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 95, is the psalm that the Church invites those who pray the Office to begin every single day with, perhaps because it is a call to respond to God’s love. The response “if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” begs us to ask the question, “Do I have the courage to listen to what God is asking of me, and do I have the courage to correspond?”
In contrast with the Israelites in our first reading who thirsted and “tested the LORD, saying, ‘Is the LORD in our midst or not?’” (Ex 17:7), the saints knew that the Lord had not abandoned them. Each did not see (and neither should we see) her incredibly painful death as a chastisement but as an opportunity to unite herself with the sufferings of her Lord in one last effort to correspond to God’s love with her whole being. Maybe we think, “That’s all very well and good for them, but it seems that I do not even have enough love or virtue to go without ice cream for forty days!” as the cross taken up with enthusiasm at the start of Lent has begun to feel burdensome. The example of Our Lord’s Passion and those of the saints should encourage us. In fact, St. Thomas’s second reason for Christ’s Passion being the most suitable way for our redemption is that thereby Christ gave us an example. Christ suffered the worst in all of history, and He and the saints show us that it is possible to love unto death.
It’s true, the terrible thing about humanity in the fallen state is that we are not naturally equipped to correspond to God’s love. However, by His sacrifice, Jesus not only gave us the example of suffering in obedience and love but also won for us the grace to do likewise. In Baptism, we receive sanctifying grace—God puts His own life into us. Our second reading speaks to this also: “the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). As we make our way towards Easter when we renew our baptismal promises, Lent is a time especially filled with graces for conversion, for recognizing in humility that we don’t correspond, don’t love God above all else in the sublime way we are called to. On our own, we cannot love enough even to give up ice cream, but with grace we have the humility to ask for fortitude and charity to do even more, such as holding our tongue instead of making a biting remark or getting to daily Mass early to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Thanks be to God that with grace we can carry our cross out of love and ask for hope, praying with the entrance antiphon: “Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and poor” (Ps 25:16).
In the end, our wanting His love is what God thirsts for. Returning to our Gospel reading, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that He can give her living water so that she will never thirst again, but will have eternal life. He will make a similar claim later in John’s Gospel when he cries out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink!” (Jn 7:37). Jesus gently (so gently that she initially thinks he means flowing water versus stagnant well water) leads the woman to confess her sinful life. She realizes that she has been thirsting for something that none of her previous husbands could give her: the infinite love and mercy of God, of Jesus. Her new faith moves her to leave behind her water jar, her former earthly desires, and to go announce to the very people that rejected her that the Christ had come. Jesus thirsts to give us his life, his love, his grace. This Sunday, we ask God for graces of conversion, for living water, to correspond to His thirst with our own for Him.