Sunday:       Christian Initiation: First Scrutiny - 3 rd Sunday of Lent
Date:         March 18, 2001
Year:         C
The readings: [Ex. 17:3-7; Rom. 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn. 4:5-42]
The message:  Worship the Father in spirit and truth.
Prepared by:  CATHOLIC DOORS MINISTRY
Total words:  1191

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Welcome my brothers and sisters to the First Scrutiny of your Christian Initiation. Reflecting upon the peace and joy of Jesus that awaits you, I think of each and everyone of you as a flower that is about to bloom. Speaking spiritually, I perceive how the loving grace of God has abundantly touched your hearts so living water may flow in you and through you.

In today's First Reading from the Book of Exodus, we heard that the people thirsted for water. They complained to Moses, he in turn crying out to the Lord. As instructed by God, Moses, in the presence of the elders, struck the rock and water flowed from it.

This event from the days of the Old Testament was prophetic in nature. As the people in the days of Moses thirsted for water, we also thirst for water. As they learned that life has no purpose when one separates himself from God, we also have learned that life is void without God. Having being created to adore and praise God in thanksgiving for all the goodness that He has bestowed upon us, until we discover that truth, we will wonder purposely on the earth. When we adopt Jesus in our lives, His Living Water flows in us. Then, our spiritual minds are opened and we discover that we have a greater purpose in life as a living stone that belongs to the mystical Body of Christ.

During the First Reading, we heard that God commanded Moses to strike the rock. Throughout the Holy Bible, reference is made to God as the Rock. This is the Name that is given to God the Father in the Old Testament and to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The command for Moses to strike the rock was prophetic in nature. It meant that when Jesus Christ Who is the Rock would be crucified and would die for our sins, living water would flow upon the world through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit of Christ, Living Water would flow towards the children of God. Those who, by the grace of the Heavenly Father would answer their calling by welcoming the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit in the Most Holy Name of Jesus, they would qualify to drink abundantly from the Living Water.

Today's Second Reading from the Book of Romans tells us that we are justified by faith. Through Jesus Christ, we obtain access to the grace of God with Who we now have peace in the hope of sharing in His eternal glory.

To perceive the meaning of justification by faith, it is necessary to go back to an earlier Chapter in the Book of Romans. Our justification, the righteousness that we receive through faith in Jesus Christ by the grace of God as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement, passes over the sins that we previously have committed. [Rom. 3:21-6]

In other words, through Christ and the Sacrament of Baptism, we are justified by faith through the grace of God for the sins committed prior to receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. But once we sin again after our Baptism, we must turn to the Sacrament of Reconciliation in order to reinstate the former state of grace that we had received so we can maintain our justification by faith in Christ.

Our hope to share in the glory of God does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured in our hearts through the indwelling Holy Spirit that He gives us. God proved His love for us. While we were still sinners, He sent His only beloved Son Jesus Christ to die for us who were ungodly in our human nature. Now, through our living faith in Christ, we as Christians come to share in the glory of God by the indwelling Holy Spirit who gives us a new birth as a new creation through the Sacrament of Baptism.

Reviewing today's reading from the Gospel of John, we heard the promise of Jesus to give us living water that will become in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The living water is the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. How do we become springs of water gushing up to eternal life? It is by our lifetime sanctification in Christlikeness through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is by shining in our living faith - for faith without works is dead. [Jas. 2:26] It is by the bearing fruit of the Holy Spirit, so we may shine in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. [Gal. 5:22- 3] When we persevere in our living faith in Christ by the grace of God the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, we become springs of water gushing up towards our eternal life.

How does this come about to happen? It is through the Sacrament of Baptism. When we are baptized through faith in Christ, our old nature died with Christ and was buried with Christ. [Rom. 6:4] Through the grace of God, we became new creations of the seed of God [1 Jn. 3:9, 5:18], resurrecting with Christ. [Col. 2:12] The new creation that we became fulfills the promise of God that is found in the Old Testament, that we will receive a new heart and a new spirit within us. [Ezek. 11:19-20, 18:31, 36:26-7]

Why does God bless us with a new spirit? Jesus answered that question in today's Gospel. 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 those to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

As newly created spiritual beings, we are called to embrace our spiritual minds in all things to worship God in spirit. We are called to set aside our worldly minds. We are called to seek the greater things in life that accumulate Heavenly treasures for us. Those who walk in the darkness, seeking wealth, fleshly desires or worldly fame, are alive in the world but dead in Christ.

We, gushing with living water through the perseverance of our living faith, hope and charity, have an eternal glory that awaits us as children of God.

My brothers and sisters, the joyful day of your Baptism quickly approaches. Before long, you shall be transformed into new creations in Christ so you too may join us in the worship of God in spirit. The day of your baptism shall be a glorious day in Heaven, witnessed by all the angels and saints who are holy members of the invisible Kingdom of God on earth to which we belong. I pray to the Lord God that when you shall be received in His holy family, you will all become fruitful so you too will go forward as gushing water to bring others to God. Then one day, we will all be rejoicing together in Heaven in the Divine Presence of God.

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The readings...

[The readings were taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (C) 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America.]

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First Reading...

"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?' So Moses cried out to the Lord, 'What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.'

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. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock of 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.

He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'" [Exo. 17:3-7]

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Second Reading...

"Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 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.

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. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." [Rom. 5:1-2, 5-8]

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Gospel Reading...

"Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.' (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

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.) 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.'

The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 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, 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.' 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.'

Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back,' The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.'

Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.'

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.' Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?' They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to eat?'

Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest?' But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.'

Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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.' [Jn. 4:5-42]

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