Every year during Lent the story of the woman at the well is told. The third Sunday of Lent is also the Sunday on which parishes with candidates in the RCIA program conduct what we call the first scrutiny before baptism or profession of faith at the Easter Vigil. These candidates are about to enter the Church. It is a season that, while we emphasize repentance on the one hand, we also emphasize the anticipation of new life in the Church.
We listen to the parable and are apt to get caught up in the woman's past of five husbands. The woman is astonished at the master's awareness and knowledge. But just as we may be caught up in the spirit of Lenten repentance, we may forget to keep looking ahead and thus, the most important thing about the woman at the well may be overlooked. She is also the first evangelizer. It's not too difficult to explain. Three brief sentences are all we need to know about this woman. Jesus speaks to the woman. She hears the word of Jesus. She runs off to tell her fellow townspeople. What Jesus speaks to her makes such an impression that she wants to share it with others.
I have often told the story of a young man I knew from my home parish. I was active in my parish's Catholic Youth Organization in the late 1950s. One of our members was a fellow named Jerry who was not Catholic. We always wondered why he joined the CYO and he wasn't even Catholic. He attended the nearby public school. Though we liked him and he became a part of us, we didn't understand why he hung out with Catholics.
One Saturday morning we showed up at the parish to gather for a field trip when this young non-Catholic man burst out of the church. He saw us gathering and came running up to us yelling out, "I've been baptized! I've been baptized!" Remember that at that time, preparation for entering the Church was always a matter of regular meetings with a priest that ended with a private baptismal ceremony. What I and my CYO friends did not know was that Jerry had been working with our pastor for some months preparing for baptism. He not only was not Catholic. He had not been previously baptized. He was the most excited human being I have seen. The joy of his baptism spilled out everywhere.
How did I and my friends react? Well, some were visibly embarrassed by his actions and some just shrugged it off. So you've been baptized. So what? But the radiance of the moment didn't wear off Jerry. About two years ago I met Jerry again for the first time when I accidentally met him at a local parish when I happened to run into him while assisting at a weekend Mass. The strength of that baptism had not left him and he remained an active member of his own parish.
Most of us here are probably cradle Catholics and I suspect most of us take our faith for granted. There are probably things about our faith that we enjoy but I have rarely seen excitement in myself or other cradle Catholics about too many things in our faith like I saw in Jerry that morning in the late 1950s. Jerry knew that his baptism made a difference in his life.
The woman at the well knew that something changed when she met Jesus. It was a most astonishing thing in her life. Something so profound occurred that she ran into the nearby town to let the townspeople know of it. She had to share it with others. They came out to see this man who had told her everything she had ever done. He wasn't a fortune teller. He didn't read cards or palms. He didn't perform magic tricks. He simply told the woman who she was. And that simple encounter meant that she wouldn't be able to live her life in the same way.
Each week we meet Jesus in precisely the same way the woman did. We do so in this liturgy through the reception of holy communion. But what is the result? Are we as excited as she was? Are we ready to go into our neighborhoods and tell others about Jesus? Are we excited enough to want to share Jesus with others? Do we bring our neighbors to meet Jesus?
The Archdiocese of Indianapolis is involved in a process of consolidating parishes due to declining numbers of priests and changing demographics. Many of us are trying to hold on to a Church and to a parish within a Church that reflects time past. We want things to stay as they were. But they can't because things aren't the way they were. We are inclined to be inhospitable. We aren't always welcoming of others who don't believe as we do, who don't think as we do, who don't look as we do. We often don't want to bring new people into the Church. We are inclined to ignore the profound yet simple event that happened at the well.
Perhaps you and I have not heard Jesus tell us all about ourselves. Perhaps we are not listening closely.
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