The love
of God has been poured out into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us.
May that love of God be always with.
R/ And also with you.
Introduction
by the Celebrant
A.
A Deep Personal Encounter
Often we are not willing to listen to people who judge us or who look down
on us. The people we can easily listen to and whom we can encounter from person
to person are those who do not criticize us but respect us. Even though we
have not always been the persons and Christians we should have been, we know
that Jesus always treats us with respect and sees the potentials for good
in us. Let us ask our Lord in this eucharist that we may treat one another
with the same esteem as he shows us.
B.
Living Water
Often we are not willing to listen to people who judge us or who look down
on us. The people we can easily listen to and whom we can encounter from person
to person are those who do not criticize us but respect us. Even though we
have not always been the persons and Christians we should have been, we know
that Jesus always treats us with respect and sees the potentials for good
in us. Let us ask our Lord in this eucharist that we may treat one another
with the same esteem as he shows us.
Penitential
Act
Let us pray
to God our Father
that Jesus may be the source of life to all (PAUSE)
Lord Jesus, spring of living water,
give us always that water that purifies our heart :
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
Jesus Christ, spring of living water,
give us the water that makes our faith grow :
Christ, have mercy. R/ Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, spring of living water,
give us the water that that quenches our thirst
for the fullness of your life and love :
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
Have mercy on us, Lord.
and give us the living water
of your gentle forgiveness.
Water your life in us
and let it well up to everlasting life . R/ Amen.
Opening
Prayer
A.
A Deep Personal Encounter
Let us pray to God our Father
that Jesus may be the source of life to all (PAUSE)
Creative and forgiving Father
you let people experience your mercy
when they encounter your Son, Jesus Christ.
Attune us to his voice speaking to us,
your word of forgiveness and love.
Dispose us to meet him from person to person,
that he may quench our thirst for life
and that we may live in joy and courage
and become more like him day after day.
May all drink from the living water of his love.
Grant this through Christ our Lord . R/ Amen.
B.
Living Water
Let us pray to God
that the life of Christ in us
may be rich and full (PAUSE)
Father of life
and giver of all that is good,
we want to drink your life to the full.
Let Jesus, your living word,
speak to us from heart to heart.
Give us an unquenchable thirst
for the things that matter:
for faith and for meaning in our lives,
for hope in a better world
filled with your justice and peace,
for a spirit of committed love
that knows how to share itself.
Generously give us all these
through Jesus Christ our Lord . R/ Amen.
Liturgy
of the Word
First Reading
Introduction: Water
Flowing from the Rock
Thirst is the most painful trial of travelers
in the desert. God is to his people on the march the rock on whom they can rely
and the source of life-giving water.
First
Reading: Exodus
17:3-7
In those days the people
thirsted for water there and grumbled against Moses, "Why did you make
us leave Egypt to have us die of thirst with our children and our cattle?"
So Moses cried to Yahweh,
"What shall I do with the people? They are almost ready to stone me!"
Yahweh said to Moses, "Go ahead of the people and take with you the elders
of Israel. Take with you the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
I will stand there before you on the rock at Horeb. You will strike the rock
and water will flow from it and the people will drink." Moses did this
in the presence of the elders of Israel.
The place was called
Massah and Meribah because of the complaints of the Israelites, who tested
Yahweh saying, "Is Yahweh with us or not?"
Responsorial
Psalm: Ps 95:1-2,6-7,8-9
R. If
today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving,
let us joyfully sing psalms to him. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down and worship;
let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds,
the flock he guides. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice;
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert."
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Second Reading
Introduction:
The Love of God Has Been Poured
Out Into Our Hearts
Through Christ, who died for us, God
has poured out into our hearts everything that we thirst for: faith, hope in
God's future, the Spirit of love.
Second
Reading: Romans
5:1-2,5-8
Brothers and sisters,
by faith we have received true righteousness, and we are at peace with God,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through him we obtain this favor in which
we remain and we even boast to expect the Glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint
us because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the
love of God.
Consider, moreover, the
time that Christ died for us: when we were still helpless and unable to do
anything. Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very
good person, perhaps someone would dare to die. But see how God manifested
his love for us: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
GospelIntroduction:
Give Me Your Living Water
Jesus enters into a personal dialogue
with the Samaritan woman. He reveals himself to her as the giver of living,
ever-running water, that is, the giver of new life to us.
Gospel
Reading: John
4:5-16,19-26,39-42
Jesus came to a Samaritan
town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob's well is there. Tired from his journey, Jesus sat down by the well;
it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said
to her, "Give me a drink." His disciples had just gone into town
to buy some food.
The Samaritan woman said
to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman,
for a drink?" (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.)
Jesus replied, "If you only knew the Gift of God! If you knew who it
is that asks you for a drink, you yourself would have asked me and I would
have given you living water."
The woman answered, "Sir,
you have no bucket and this well is deep; where is your living water? Are
you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well after he drank
from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?"
Jesus said to her, "Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again;
but those who drink of the water that I shall give will never be thirsty;
for the water that I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling
up to eternal life."
The woman said to him, "Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty
and never have to come here to draw water."
The woman then said to
him, "I see you are a prophet; tell me this: Our fathers used to come
to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem
is the only place to worship God?"
Jesus said to her, "Believe
me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that
will not be on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship without
knowledge, while we Jews worship with knowledge, for salvation comes from
the Jews. But the hour is coming and is even now here, when the true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers
the Father wants. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in
spirit and truth."
The woman said to him,
"I know that the Messiah, that is the Christ, is coming; when he comes,
he will tell us everything." And Jesus said, "I who am talking to
you, I am he."
In that town many Samaritans
believed in him when they heard the woman who declared, "He told me everything
I did." So, when they came to him, they asked him to stay with them and
Jesus stayed there two days. After that many more believed because of his
own words and they said to the woman, "We no longer believe because of
what you told us; for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is
the Savior of the world."
Commentary
THE
Sunday of water readings. The people thirst in the desert and cry out against
God and Moses. Moses is commanded to strike the rock and bring forth water
and he obeys and the people have water, even after testing God. And Jesus
thirsts and a woman of Samaria comes to the well. She is questioned and
led through the process of conversion, belief and knowledge of who Jesus
is until she leaves her water jar at the well and goes home with the living
water of the Word and Spirit within her. Yet she still needs the community
of the Word and paschal mystery (the three days he spends with them) to
get past her limited personal experience of him to come to know him as the
Savior of the World How thirsty are we? For baptism, for the Word of God,
for the truth, for knowledge of Jesus, for community, for our God who saves
the whole world? Are we still testing God for our immediate concerns and
oblivious to the Water of Life that is in our midst? Jesus, you thirst for
us. Seize our hearts and lives so that we might come to worship our God
in spirit and truth with you. Amen.
Let us pray
in spirit and in truth to God our Father, the source of all life, and let
us say: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we are in trouble, that someone may come along and talk to us, let
us pray:
R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we meet someone in trouble, that we may sit down by his or her side
and listen with understanding and patience, let us pray: R/ Lord of life,
hear our prayer.
- When we
search to renew our lives this Lent, that we may learn to live in the spirit
of Jesus, let us pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we
gather around the Lord's table, that his Word may be living water to us, let
us pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we
try to pray in spirit and in truth, that we may not forget others, let us
pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we live in unjust situations, that we may speak out and stand up for
the weak and downtrodden, let us pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- When we are surrounded by the poor, that we may generously share with them,
let us pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
- If we are
a real Church community, that we may become to all who are thirsty a fresh
source of living water, let us pray: R/ Lord of life, hear our prayer.
Father, all
good things come from your hand. Show us new ways to you and to one another
and let us encounter one another, as you encounter us in Jesus Christ our
Lord. R/ Amen.
Prayer over
the Gifts
Lord our
God,
in these signs of bread and wine
Jesus your Son comes among us.
May he still our hunger
and quench our thirst
for a deeper faith and hope.
May we in our turn,
as a living Christian community,
become a stream of living water
to everyone and all,
to satisfy their thirst for truth,
for freedom and justice
and for everlasting joy,
on account of Jesus Christ our Lord . R/ Amen.
Introduction
to the Eucharistic Prayer
God our Father
has satisfied our hunger and thirst for all that is true and good by giving
us Jesus. Let us thank him with all our hearts.
Invitation
to the Lord's Prayer
Let us pray
to our Father
in the words of Jesus, his Son,
and ask him to give us all we need
on our way to eternal life : R/ Our Father...
Deliver
Us
Deliver us,
Lord, from every evil
and grant us peace in our day.
Open our eyes to our shortcomings
and wake us up from our self-complacency,
that we may follow your Son without fear
on the way to you and to all in need.
May we thus hasten the coming in glory
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. R/ For the kingdom...
Invitation
to Communion
This is Jesus
our Lord, who tells us:
Whoever drinks the water
that I shall give
will have a spring inside him or her,
welling up for eternal life.
Happy are we to be invited
to drink of this water of life
and never get thirsty again. R/ Lord, I am not worthy...
Prayer after
Communion
Lord, God
of life,
when the Samaritan woman learned who Jesus was,
she believed in him
and her life was changed.
Your Son has spoken to us here
and revived our strength.
May we also learn who is speaking to us
in the people who cry out for help.
May we recognize your Son in them
and walk by their side on the way to you,
our Father for ever and ever . R/ Amen.
Blessing
In this eucharist
God has again quenched our thirst
by giving us his Son Jesus.
Now we are strong enough again
to go our difficult way in the desert,
a way of renewal and conversion
to God and to others.
Let our thirst never be satisfied
unless we become to one another
a drink of refreshing water.
May God give you strength and bless you:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit . R/ Amen.
May the Lord
go with you
to love him in all you meet . R/ Thanks be to God.
THE Sunday of water readings. The people thirst in the desert and cry out against God and Moses. Moses is commanded to strike the rock and bring forth water and he obeys and the people have water, even after testing God. And Jesus thirsts and a woman of Samaria comes to the well. She is questioned and led through the process of conversion, belief and knowledge of who Jesus is until she leaves her water jar at the well and goes home with the living water of the Word and Spirit within her. Yet she still needs the community of the Word and paschal mystery (the three days he spends with them) to get past her limited personal experience of him to come to know him as the Savior of the World How thirsty are we? For baptism, for the Word of God, for the truth, for knowledge of Jesus, for community, for our God who saves the whole world? Are we still testing God for our immediate concerns and oblivious to the Water of Life that is in our midst? Jesus, you thirst for us. Seize our hearts and lives so that we might come to worship our God in spirit and truth with you. Amen.