THE TRUE THIRST

 Meditation for the Third Sunday of Lent

(Ex 17:3-7; Rm 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-42)

On the Cross, after they had inflicted on Jesus on the pain, He cried out, “I am thirsty” (Jn 19:28). Having lost so much blood, Jesus was exhausted and He begged for water. But they squeezed a sour wine in His mouth. Christian spirituality sees through this thirst of Jesus on the Cross as not just thirst for water, but a thirst for souls to be redeemed. In addition, thirst occurring just before He died becomes an offering of humanity’s thirst for God and wellbeing. Now, every human thirst can become a participation in the thirst of Jesus for us. The wicked will offer Him sour wine of bad behavior, while the faithful ought to offer Him their hearts, repentant, full of love and charity.

 

That means our thirst for material wellbeing and for our spiritual life must properly ordered, so that the thirst of Jesus becomes the meeting point. There is always the tendency to exalt and focus on our thirst for material wellbeing, and use it as a weapon against our innate thirst for God. At times we do not realize our true thirst for virtue, goodness, and eternal life. We are distracted by temporary desires for pleasure and possession becloud our minds and hearts. This was the experience of the Israelites at Massah and Meribah. In their thirst for water in the desert they spoke against God and wanted stone Moses to death.

In the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, we see how Jesus gradually led the woman to discover her true thirst, over and above her thirst for water. Jesus made it clear that there is a true thirst, which brings lasting satisfaction than thirst for physical water and wellbeing. He said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Once the woman began to thirst for this living water, Jesus led her to abandon her thirst for life of pleasure, repent of her sins, then she accepted Jesus in her life as the Messiah.

 

Jesus is the source of the true fountain that satisfies our every thirst. The second reading explains that it is through faith in Jesus Christ that we unlock this peace and satisfaction. Through Jesus we obtain access to the grace that sustains us, and we rejoice already in our hope of sharing in the glory of God. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” This fountain of love flows from the Cross, even to the sinner and the ungodly, who are distracted with thirst for pleasure and worldly life. The ‘thirst’ of Jesus on the Cross is an expression of His love for us, which longs for our salvation and wellbeing. It is the true thirst in which our every thirst is ordered and offered; here, we identified the things that really matter, thirst for the living water that satisfies us for health and wellbeing, and for eternal life. Amen.

 

Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R

Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church,

Tedi-Muwo, Ojo, Lagos.

Sunday March 12^th, 2023.

www.nwachinwe.blogspot.com

19^th Lenten meditation

The Power of Mercy

Meditation for Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

(Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Lk 15:1-3, 11-32)

Let us meditate on great mercy of God as given in the readings of today. God’s mercy and forgiveness is so powerful that it can pull a sinner back home. The prophet Micah extols God’s mercy and forgiveness, saying, “God does not retain His anger forever because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion upon us, He will tread our iniquities under foot.” In the gospel, the parable of the prodigal son exposes the wretchedness of the sinner in contrast with the gratuitous life of who lives under the grace of the Father.

 

In all, we see how repentance begins and ends with God’s love and mercy. The love and generosity of the father exposed the selfishness of the prodigal, and inspired him to trace his way back home. Contrition and repentance are the responsibility of the sinner and the response required of him. At the end of the journey, God’s mercy opens its arms to embrace him and welcome him back. His loves clothes him and restores his dignity as ‘son’, and an inheritor of the wealth of grace. Thus, every story of repentance is always a story of God’s mercy and forgiveness, as He has shown to our fathers from the days of old.

 

That is why this season of Lent helps us to be more aware of God’s mercy and forgiveness as we meditate on the cross of Christ and practice fasting, prayer and almsgiving. In our bodily discipline, we feel the wretchedness of the prodigal, tune our minds and hearts to God’s love and mercy, which He lavished upon us in Christ (cf. Eph 1:7-9). Then, we trace our steps, in humility and contrition, back to union with God. Amen.

 

Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R

Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church,

Tedi-Muwo, Ojo, Lagos.

Saturday March 11^th, 2023.

www.nwachinwe.blogspot.com

18^th Lenten meditation