Toña Monzón rscj  | If the Samaritan woman took us by the hand, what would she say to us, and where would she bring us?
Surely she would invite us to accompany her to Jacob's well, and tell us how she arrived there with the empty jug of her needs and distracting cares, all of which proved to be no problem at all for the man who was waiting for her to accomplish his work in her. And she would tell us that if she learned anything from Jesus at that time, it is that He is not put off by our defensiveness and the things we cling to. Rather, as the Son always acting according to the example of His Father (Cf. Jn 5,19), He searches for that “fracture” in our makeup from which our deepest yearnings emerge, as if He were convinced that only a greater desire can put lesser ones in their place. That may be why He let her go on telling Him about her prejudices, wariness, and misgivings, until the thirst for life that she was hiding in her heart revealed itself, and then He "pounced" on that desire: "If you only knew the gift of God..." Without His zeroing in on her “fracture,” she would not have recognized her unsatisfied needs; without His focusing on it, He would have let her return home with her jug filled with a water that was not quenching her thirst.
If we asked her about how her desire was transformed, she would encourage us never to let anyone or anything snuff out or cast aside the desires we experienced when we first chose to follow Jesus in the Religious Life. Rather, she would have us always keep them vivid and waiting to be fulfilled, because the best of our “humanness” and everything that allows us to remain open and filled with expectation from that Gift that we never fully comprehend is hidden in them.
And concerning her experience as a missionary for the people in her village, the Samaritan woman might tell us about her strategy for leading them to Jesus. From Him she had also learned how to become an expert in humanity, how to connect with dormant desires in the depth of each soul, and look for those “fractures” that enable grace to pass through, because that is where the Lord is already at work. But for such a mission it is better for "people-professionally-accomplished and busy-about-spiritually-inconsequential commitments" to take a back seat. Only "those who search for wells," who are capable of approaching and "getting in touch," of spending time and getting to the bottom of things, can help others shed light on the spring of living water that they have within themselves.
The woman would try to convince us of the importance of our accompanying and sustaining each other in the faith, learning how to reread life together and make it possible for each one to share the water of his or her experience. She might reveal how curious she is to know where we channel the torrents of our emotions, and whether or not our vows are giving our deep-seated dynamism the apostolic orientation that it had in the life of Jesus. And maybe she would even ask us to name our husbands, those realities that we strike deals with and that separate us from our Center:
- the husband of "uninformed and conformist nonsense," who would have us believe that there is no hope for this world ("that's how it goes in a market economy...," "it's the price to pay for technological progress..."), and that the most sensible thing we can do is to get along with the way things are, “go with the flow.”
- the "neoliberal, consumerist husband," who deceptively lures us toward “keeping up with the Joneses.” The one who creates an ever-growing need for creature comforts and makes us think it is normal to live in the lap of luxury, far removed from any risk-taking. The one who camouflages our resistance to everything that threatens to get us out of our rut by labeling it “prudence.” When we live that way, the "loony idea" that first motivated us to follow Jesus is snuffed out, our outlook becomes clouded, and we lose sight of the places here below that call for our involvement.
- the "individualist husband," who blinds us to fountains that bring change, who seduces us with the easy-going ways of a trivial and dissipated life in which the pain of others, the awe of God's presence, and disturbing reminders of His Gospel fail to touch our hearts.
- the "pseudo-therapist husband," who banks on psychology as the ultimate explanation for everything; who is always suspicious of our desires, invariably denying that they come from a transcendent source. The one who places us on a level of a seemingly indisputable positivism that claims everything stems from the innermost recesses of our psyche and anything else is but an illusion. In that way he denies the possibility that our freedom can be extended beyond our selves.
- the "secularist husband,” who leads us away from the well, from our deeply moving encounter with the Lord and mystical experience; the one who has us base our lives on ethical standards alone, who "secularizes" our hearts and takes away our ability to express spiritual experience. Out of this is born that “inability to talk” about the sublime, our fear in the presence of mystery and symbol, fossilized liturgies, and an apostolic activism in which there is neither time nor space for playful, silent, “easy-going” and constant prayer.
- the "spiritualist husband," who strives to keep erecting shrines and escape to the heights of new rites and reformist agendas with hazy new age characteristics, unrelated to the realities of everyday life.
- the "idolizer husband," who gets us to worship the media and its instruments, institutions, rites and laws, having nothing to do with do with a “return” to what is religious, and making it more and more difficult for us to give the Father the adoration that He seeks from us.
- the "thousand-things-to-do husband" who hides behind the old dynamic of looking for justification through works. The one who sees us more as givers than receivers, and converts apostolic failures or old age into real traumatic situations, because that is when work loses it absolute claim on us.
But she, who was freed from all her idolatries, would tell us, above all:
"Be patient with how slow the process is when you break off your ties with those husbands. Be sure that in each of your lives there is a well and that the Master is waiting for you there, seated on its ledge. Trust in His spellbinding power, His patience as He penetrates your defenses, His desire to lead you to the depths of your lives and the interior fountains known only to yourselves, because He knows how to accompany that descent without rushing or losing patience. When I twice heard Him say: “the water that I want to give,” I knew He was filled with a fierce desire to submerge all of us in its swift-flowing stream.
Don't rest satisfied with what you know about Him: engage in the process of intimacy to which you too have been blessed to be invited. At first I thought of Him as nothing more than a Jew, but He was leading me to the point of discovering Him as Lord, Prophet and Messiah, the One I had always been waiting for without knowing it. Have the audacity to give Him new names, that will never show up in the boring manuals lining your library shelves.
Don't be afraid to acknowledge the thirst that dwells in you. And don't deceive yourselves into believing that your life as consecrated men and women exempts you from the uncertainties and vulnerability that throb in the heart of every human being. Change your attitude of being never-ending "donors" and see yourselves as travelers with those who travel and seekers with those who are seeking. Because only then will you experience the joyful surprise of being evangelized by the very people you want to evangelize. Learn how to listen better, and instead of preaching and directing so much, become experts in asking questions, conversing, and sharing with others that poverty that puts us all in the same boat. Because only if you experience your thirst will you be able to fathom what I learned by the well: the thirsty man who asked me for water turned out to be the one who quenched my thirst, and later made me decide to tell everyone in my town about Him. And precisely because I knew I needed salvation, I was able to get across to others that I had met someone who welcomed me without judging or condemning me. Come celebrate that poverty with me, by the ledge of the well. It is a poverty that when recognized and related to Jesus is not an obstacle to receiving the gift of living water but the best chance we have to welcome it and let it burst into eternal Life.
But I caution you, be ready: He may be waiting for you anywhere, anytime of the day, just when you're engrossed in trivial concerns, petty quarrels, or stale traditions bound up with status or rules. If you stop to listen to Him, you'll be under His spell forever. At first He will ask you for something simple (“Please give me some water,” “Call your husband”)... , but in the end, you'll return home without water, without a jug, and with a thirst you've never known before, to attract your whole town to Him.
Welcome the astounding news that it is the Father who is searching for You and wants Your adoration. Don't be afraid of that message, so strange to the ears of the world, because it is that “other land" to which you, like Abraham, have been summoned. Leave behind the old familiar places that sustained You and enter into that passionate relationship with the Lord and His Kingdom in which, as Benedict of Nursia used to say, nothing interferes with His love. A relationship that becomes a way of life, as the psalmist proclaimed: “Your love is better than life!" (Ps 63,4).
(From Seekers of wells and roads: two icons for a Samaritan religious life. Conference given at the World Congress on Consecrated Life, Rome, November 23 -27 2004)
To download the entire text of the conference, click here.
For other material from the Congress, go to www.vidimusdominum.org Dolores Aleixandre rscj
Province of Spain Center-South
1 We can call to mind the "wells" in which we have enjoyed profound encounters with the Lord and received "living water" from Him, and get in touch with our thirst and with our own and others' "fractures," recognizing them as times of grace.
2 The two icons shed new light on our vows: we see them as the overflowing of a living water that puts any other thirst in its place, a compassion that urges us to do everything we can to minister to people lying wounded along the roadside, and the grace to be counter-cultural, creating alternative ways of living in a world ruled by possessiveness, self-indulgence, and the seductiveness of power.
3 In the words of St. John of the Cross, recognizing the "little things that the will sends our way" (Subida Book I, Chap 10,1) and the "the tiny thread that ensnares the bird” (Subida, Book I, Chap. 11,4). Also our experience of a God who "who will not allow anything else to dwell with Him in our hearts" (Subida, Book I, Chap. 5,8), naming the countless tiresome activities that distract us, the rushing around that dulls our senses, the hidden-away acquisitions that satisfy us, and the little sure-things that tranquilize us.
But since we are not going to be serious and transcendent all the time, we can remember the story of "The seven little goats" from our childhood. When the wolf knocked at their door and said, “Let me in, my little children, this is your mother,” they replied: “Show us your paw...” And the perverse wolf poured flour all over it to fool them. The moral being: you have to be wide awake and vigilant because those "would-be husbands" are constantly at our door courting us, and we need to help each other see their tricks and disguises for what they are.
i. This expression is from Miguel Matos, SJ, in unedited notes on formation.
ii. Cf. Sobrino, Jon, Resurrección de la verdadera Iglesia. Los pobres, lugar teológico de la eclesiología, Santander 1981, pp. 334-335.
iii. Cf. Miguel Matos, SJ, op. cit.
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