Jesus quenches our thirst – John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Third Sunday of Lent, Year A, with a reception into the catechumenate; Holy Infant parish.

Why was this woman going to the well on her own at noon? Let’s start with the easier part of that question. Why was she going to the well? Presumably, she was going to the well because she wanted water. Or, probably, because she needed water. It seems that this well was some ways out from the village. She must have needed water badly enough that she was prepared to walk through the noon day heat to go to the well. She was thirsty. Why did she go on her own, and why did she go at noon? Noon in a hot climate is not the best time to do your well run. And leaving the village alone is not a normal safe thing to do. Maybe, and we’re left with guesses about this woman, maybe she chose noon precisely because it was not a popular time to go to the well. Maybe she was not just lacking in water, but in community, not just having no one to go with, but really preferring not to be around others.

Christ brings the heavenly down the mountain for us – Matt 17:1-9; Gen 12:1-4a

Second Sunday of Lent, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

“Luke, I am your father;” the de-masking at the close of the Marriage of Figaro; the transformation of the Beast into Belle’s prince; the quite frankly bizarre moment in more than one Shakespeare play when a woman lets down her hair and only then do the rest of the dramatis personae realize she’s not a boy: we’re fascinated by these kinds of scenes, where a character’s true identity, hidden from other characters or even from the reader, gets made visible, when the dramatic x-ray machine cuts through flesh and marrow and discloses bone.  This is the vision God granted these three disciples, a disclosure of the glorious light Christ was in their midst, in contrast to the hiddenness and homelessness with which he was more normally clothed.  But this is not just a revelation about Jesus with no relevance for the rest of humanity; this is a preview of the glory of resurrection that awaits us. It’s a re-echoing of the heavenly voice from Christ’s baptism, the unwavering assertion of his beloved sonship, and another invitation to hear that voice speaking to us.

Christ raises us to be who were created to be – Gen 2:7-9, Rom 5:1219, Matt 4:1-11

First Sunday of Lent, Year A; Holy Infant.

I have to admit that whenever I’m bored, one of my go-to “this’ll-distract-me” instincts is to pull out my phone. Of course, it doesn’t always work, and I have at times caught myself looking at something on my phone, still being bored at it, or frustrated at how slowly something’s loading, and realizing that my left hand is instinctively reaching down to my pocket to take out… my phone. Forgetting what I’m doing makes me think that something’s going to satisfy me that isn’t, in this case that isn’t even there. We so often reach for what is ultimately unsatisfying when we forget what we’re doing, forget who we are.