"The Samaritan woman:
she's a woman with something important to say."

She's a woman with something important to say. In fact, she's a woman with several important things to say--to the faithless and the faithful alike. I'm talking about the woman whose story we just heard: the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at Jacob's well. If, perchance, you do not have faith (and yes, it is possible to come to church every Sunday and still have no faith), then the Samaritan woman has something important to say to you this morning--because she also lacked faith in Christ prior to their meeting and conversation. If, on the other hand, you are blessed with the precious gift of faith (a gift for which you should thank God every day), the Samaritan woman also has some things to say to you--because during her encounter with Jesus she not only received the gift of faith, she also grew in faith. And everyone who has faith needs to grow in the gift, since nobody's faith is perfect.

The first message is primarily for those without the gift. To you the Samaritan woman says, "Give the truth a hearing. I did--and I'm exceedingly glad that I did." At the very beginning of the story, St. John told us this very important detail: he said, "Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans." The Samaritans were the descendants of northern Israelites who had intermarried with pagan Assyrians; and they had built a rival temple in Samaria to the one that the Jews worshiped at in Jerusalem. Those two facts alone made for bad blood between them and the Jews. And so it was nothing short of incredible that this woman even allowed Jesus to strike up a conversation with her! He, of course, had no animosity in his heart toward her or the Samaritans or anyone else--but at the beginning she had no way of knowing that. The only thing that she knew was that he was Jewish--and (potentially at least) an enemy. Other Samaritan women in her position might have ignored our Lord completely or made an uncharitable remark toward him--but this woman courageously made the decision to give him a hearing. And this is what all those who lack faith need to do: they need to give Jesus Christ a hearing--the Jesus Christ who speaks to the world today through his Church. I pray that some people did that during this past week's mission. If they did, then it's highly likely that they were touched and transformed in the same way that the Samaritan woman was touched and transformed.

She began her discussion with our Lord by asking him a question. After he said to her, "Give me a drink," she responded: "How can you ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?" Later on she asked other questions. For example, when Jesus told her that he could give her "living water," she said, "Sir, you don't have a bucket and this well is deep. Where do you expect to get this flowing water? Surely you don't pretend to be greater than our ancestor Jacob . . . ?" Still later, after she called Jesus a prophet, she said to him, "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you people claim that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship God." Implied in that statement is yet another question: "Jesus, why do Jews and Samaritans disagree on this matter? Help me to understand." Notice that she asked these questions in sincerity and with an open mind. She was seeking the truth. And so her message to people without faith--and to people with faith--is: "Ask questions. Followers of Jesus are supposed to have an intelligent faith, not a childish faith. Don't be afraid to seek the truth; but do so with an open mind and heart, like I did." I think we all know that there are two ways to ask questions: one way is to make a statement in the form of a question. We've already got our minds made up on the matter, and we simply ask the question to make a point. Pontius Pilate did that to Jesus on Good Friday when he said to him, "What is truth?" Pilate did not ask that question because he was interested in learning something from Jesus. He already had his mind made up on the matter, and he was simply making a statement to our Lord. Through that sarcastic question he was actually saying, "There is no such thing as truth, Jesus. It doesn't exist." Now, unfortunately, this is precisely how many people today ask their questions about Christianity. They pose their queries with a sarcastic, ridiculing tone: "How can you Christians possibly believe that Jesus is both God and man?!" With those words they are actually making a statement. They're saying: "That's a ridiculous idea that God could become man. It's impossible; I'll never believe it." Or what about those who sarcastically ask, "How can you Catholics believe that the pope is infallible?" Unfortunately, people who say that with a ridiculing tone are not at all interested in learning about the Catholic teaching on infallibility. They're simply telling us that, as far as they're concerned, "No human being can possibly be infallible--and that includes the pope!" Well, if we want to be enlightened as the Samaritan woman was enlightened, then we must ask our questions differently. We must ask our questions in sincerity--as the Samaritan woman asked hers--and then accept the answers of Jesus as enthusiastically as she accepted the answers our Lord gave to her.

Here's something else she says to us: "Do not be afraid to be challenged by the Word of God. Allow the Word to transform you--even if the message is difficult to swallow at first." I hope you all realize: in effect, Jesus called this Samaritan woman a fornicator and an adulterer right to her face! He said, "You've had five [husbands] and the man you are living with now is not your husband." Now she could have reacted to that statement by snapping back, "Who are you to impose your morality on me, sir? Why don't you mind your own business." But to her credit, she accepted the rebuke. That's clear because her response to Jesus was: "Sir, I can see you are a prophet." Biblically, a prophet is not a fortune-teller; biblically, a prophet is a person who speaks for God. And so she was actually saying to Jesus: "I understand that what you've just told me is from God--it's his firm but loving message to me that I need to accept in order to change my life for the better."

As all of us know, when the Word of God challenges us it is very easy to give into the temptation to tune-out the message or to blame the messenger--be it Fr. Ray or someone else. The Samaritan woman warns us against making such a mistake. She understood that the Word of God is designed to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

And here's one final message that this woman gives us: "If you want your faith to grow, share it--like I shared mine with the people of my town!" As some of us know from our own experience: when you evangelize others, your own personal faith grows stronger. That's because you see other people getting excited about the Lord, you see them being delivered from sin and discouragement and fear, you see them changing their lives for the better--and that builds you up! That causes you to get even more excited about your commitment to Christ and his Church. By the way, I believe that this is one of the principal reasons why our Holy Father's faith is so strong. He goes all over the world proclaiming the Gospel, he sees the positive effect his witness has in the lives of millions of people, and all of that energizes him! It makes him even more committed to the Lord.

Bishop Sheen used to say that when we keep certain things to ourselves, they spoil. If, for example, we selfishly keep food in our refrigerator and refuse to share it with anyone else, it eventually spoils. Well, if we insist on keeping our faith to ourselves--if we make it a private matter only--then it will eventually become stagnant and spoil. Faith is meant to be shared. And so, if we feel that our faith is going nowhere at the present time, that may be the reason: we're not making the effort that we should be making to spread it around.