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This homily was given at a eucharist during the Assembly of Provincials in Korea, on October 21, 2003 Photo: Irma Dillard rscj  | The two readings today are emphatically about WATER – a perfect symbol for this gathering of women. Womb water is the place where our lives began and water has been the preoccupation of woman throughout human history – the water for growing and cooking and cleansing and renewing. Creating and sustaining life demand abundant water. As the booklet Water of Life has stated: “[Water’s] presence assures life and growth; its absence presages death and decay. Water refreshes and renews: a pool revives and restores limbs that are tired and weary; a fountain cools and soothes a spirit that is burdened and troubled; a bath cleans and purifies a body that is dirty and contaminated. Not surprisingly, people choose places close to water for holidays to be renewed and refreshed.” So we begin by giving thanks for water and praying for access to clean and sufficient water for all. Tonight we reflect on water for our own renewal and refreshment. We meet the Samaritan woman at the well and we try to identify with her deepest thirst. I’d like to pause for a minute so that each one of us can be in touch with our own deepest thirst before we think further about this story. Just take a moment to name your longing for living water… In the world of feminist biblical exegesis, the woman at the well has been radically reinterpreted, of course. Sandra Schneiders, in particular, has written on this passage. Sandra states that the woman’s “sinfulness” – her five spouses – apparently stands for the five ancient Samaritan gods, none of whom satisfies her. She is not a sinner but a woman theologian, trying to discover her deepest truth, looking for acceptance, love and trust, rejecting that which fails to satisfy, and engaging Jesus, this Jewish man by the side of the well, in a theological debate about what true worship really means. Still, the water metaphor stands. This woman at the well – a woman without a name so she can stand for every woman – is a woman who thirsts for truth; she is a woman who longs for relationship; she is a woman who has an unquenchable desire for God…every bit as much as we do…and in the midst of a most ordinary afternoon, her life is completely turned around. The woman at the well is often depicted as a story of how conversion happens in our lives and indeed it is a fine portrait: it happened for the woman in the ordinary time of her life. She was drawing water at high noon, alone and perhaps shunned by the “better” women of the village. Her encounter with Jesus broke into her ordinary time, turned her life upside down, shattered her categories, gave her reason to hope, filled her with joy, and invited her to a new way of being and worship in the world. Furthermore, it made of her a missionary, running to tell the other townspeople, because she could not keep the good news to herself. Here was a man, she proclaimed, who knew her through and through and loved her into life, a man who quenched the deepest thirst of her heart, and who promised always this water of life. Conversion happened for her because she knew her need for God, because she was prepared to engage in relationship with Jesus, because she received his unconditional acceptance and because she recognized that she could not keep the good news to herself but had to become a woman with a mission, a woman who would make known the love she had discovered there by the side of the well. I’d like to reflect one step further. I wonder if you have ever wondered, as I have, what happened to her. Jesus went on to other towns and villages and we hear no more of the woman at the well. What do you suppose happened in the weeks and months which followed her encounter by the well? It is an important question because we, too, need to find ways to sustain our life with God over the long haul. Did she follow after him or did she stay home in her village but seek every means of gaining news of this gentle man? What did she say to the man with whom she lived? To the women who had shunned her? To the townspeople who minimized her story? How did she heal this so hurtful history? On the other hand, did she become something of a celebrity, the woman to whom Jesus made such lavish promises, and if so, how did she keep her new found status in perspective? Did she find his memory fading as her daily life overwhelmed her once more and the daily grind of work obscured his presence and his power? Did she forget or start to doubt his offer of living water, afraid to believe she really was worthy of his love? So many possibilities…so many obstacles to loving. You may think of others. As I ponder the woman at the well, I think of Kwon Min Ja’s reflections with us about living out of our ideals as we are young and our instincts as we grow older, about the crises we must face and the crosses which will be like a furnace of suffering if we will only let them purify us. We are this woman. We, too, have been offered the waters of life. We are offered living water again and again here at this eucharistic table of death and new life. Let us pray for one another that we will let ourselves be satisfied with nothing less. Kathleen Hughes rscj
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