Introduction
In Year A, the Church proclaims three great Gospel passages on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of Lent from the Gospel of John: the Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. These readings form the ancient baptismal catechesis used to prepare catechumens for Easter. Through these texts of water, light, and life, the Church accompanies those preparing for Baptism — and reminds those already baptized of their own rebirth in Christ.
Today’s readings proclaim Christ as the true source of living water. He alone can satisfy the deepest thirst of the human heart.
1st Reading – Exodus 17:3-7
In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Was it just to have us die here of thirst
with our children and our livestock?”
So Moses cried out to the LORD,
“What shall I do with this people?
a little more and they will stone me!”
The LORD answered Moses,
“Go over there in front of the people,
along with some of the elders of Israel,
holding in your hand, as you go,
the staff with which you struck the river.
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink.”
This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel.
The place was called Massah and Meribah,
because the Israelites quarreled there
and tested the LORD, saying,
“Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
Our first reading describes events that took place very early in the Exodus, about three months after they left Egypt.
In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses,
This is the second Exodus incident involving water. In the first (Exodus 15:22-27), the water at Marah was bitter until the Lord made it sweet. There, too, the people grumbled. Now the situation is more severe: there is no water at all.
Though their complaint is directed at Moses, their quarrel is ultimately with God. Their deeper struggle is not thirst but trust. They doubt whether the God who delivered them from Egypt can sustain them in the wilderness.
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?”
Their fear distorts memory. The God who saved them is now suspected of malice. The last verse of this reading tells us that they doubted God’s presence at all.
The wavering faith of the Israelites illustrates what the Church teaches about temptation against faith: difficulties may shake us, but deliberate doubt can lead to spiritual blindness (CCC 2088).
So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!”
The grumbling has escalated into open rebellion; Moses fears violence.
Notice that he does not retaliate or despair; instead, he cries out to God.
The LORD answered Moses, “Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river.
God instructs Moses to employ his staff, a symbol of Moses’ authority and the divine power it could wield.
This is the same staff that had been turned into a serpent before Pharaoh (Exodus 7:8-12), used to summon the plagues of frogs (Exodus 8:5-6) and gnats (Exodus 8:16-17), stretched out to turn the Nile into blood (Exodus 7:14-20), and finally raised to part the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:15-16, 21).
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Horeb is a general name for the mountain range that runs through the region; Sinai is one of its peaks. Generally, the name is used interchangeably with Sinai.
God tells Moses he will stand before him on the rock, placing himself, as it were, in the position of one who bears the blow. The rock becomes the source of life-giving water.
The New Testament later sees in this rock a figure of Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4): struck, yet pouring forth living water.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.” This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel.
God responds not with punishment but with provision.
This is not divine capitulation to rebellion, but patient mercy. He answers their testing not by withdrawing his presence, but by making it unmistakable.
In the ancient Near Eastern world, elders functioned as the recognized leaders and legal witnesses of the community. This is, in effect, a covenantal act done with witnesses present.
The place was called Massah and Meribah,
Massah means “testing,” and meribah means “quarreling” or “contention.”
“Massah and Meribah” became a kind of shorthand throughout Scripture, repeatedly invoked as a warning to future generations (e.g., Deuteronomy 6:16, 9:22; Psalm 95:8-9; Hebrews 3:7-19).
This event is remembered not primarily for the miracle, but for the people’s failure of trust.
because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
This question is the spiritual heart of the passage.
God’s patience with Israel foreshadows the fullness of divine mercy — a love that remains steadfast even in the face of ingratitude and doubt.
2nd Reading – Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
Brothers and sisters:
Since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
In our second reading, Saint Paul proclaims that God’s love meets us precisely in our weakness — just as he did for Israel in the desert.
Brothers and sisters: Since we have been justified by faith,
Throughout Romans, Paul teaches that faith is not mere intellectual assent but a trusting obedience, which Paul calls the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26). To be justified by faith means to be brought into right relationship with God through a grace we receive, not earn.
In other words, even faith itself is a gift.
“If [a faithful man] says: ‘I have faith, therefore I merit justification,’ he will be answered: ‘What have you that you did not receive?’” (Saint Augustine of Hippo (417 AD), Letter to Paulinus of Nola, 186,3,7]
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Paul’s word for ”peace” is eirēnē, which is the Greek term used to convey the Hebrew concept of shalom.
Shalom is not merely the absence of strife; it includes all blessings of God in their fullnes: restored communion, covenant harmony, participation in divine life.
We have no right to this relationship with God. It was won for us through Christ’s saving death and resurrection.
What sin ruptured, Christ has reconciled.
through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Through his sacrifice, Jesus opened the way for us to approach God. By faith — itself sustained by grace — we enter and remain in this new standing.
The verbs here indicate an accomplished reality: this justification has already been accomplished. He has already gained our salvation, but we have not yet completely worked it out, and so we live in hope.
Thus we “boast,” not in ourselves, but in hope itself — our confident expectation of sharing in the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Christian hope is not a form of optimism but is rooted in God’s divine initiative. God’s love has been “poured out” — abundant, overflowing — through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
In the desert, God drew water from the rock to satisfy Israel’s physical thirst. Here, God draws living water into the human heart, satisfying a deeper thirst — not for survival, but for communion. What flowed from the rock in Horeb prefigures what is now poured into believers: divine love itself.
Notice also the unmistakable presence of the Trinity: the Father’s love, manifested in the Son’s sacrifice, communicated by the Spirit.
For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
We were sinners, alienated from God, when Christ died for us and gained access for us to the grace that places us in right relationship with God.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Paul tries to explain the astonishing character of divine love when he says that it is hard enough to die for a good person; to die for someone who is not good is almost unthinkable. Yet that is exactly what Christ did.
Gospel – John 4:5-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
(For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered and said to her,
“If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her,
“Go call your husband and come back.”
The woman answered and said to him,
“I do not have a husband.”
Jesus answered her,
“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’
For you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him,
“I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one speaking with you.”
At that moment his disciples returned,
and were amazed that he was talking with a woman,
but still no one said, “What are you looking for?”
or “Why are you talking with her?”
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
“Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?”
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”
But he said to them,
“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
So the disciples said to one another,
“Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’?
I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment
and gathering crops for eternal life,
so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for;
others have done the work,
and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him
because of the word of the woman who testified,
“He told me everything I have done.”
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
“We no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus reveals himself as the source of “living water,” drawing a wounded heart from misunderstanding to faith and showing that he alone can satisfy the deepest thirst of the human soul.
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there.
A bit of background information is necessary. During the Assyrian occupation (which began in 721 BC), most of the inhabitants of Israel had been carried off into exile; some remained behind and intermingled with foreign peoples whom Sargon II (king of Assyria) had imported to settle there. In intermarrying with them, a new people was formed. From that time on, these people were called Samaritans (2 Kings 17:24).
Samaritans accepted the Pentateuch but rejected the prophetic tradition and worshiped on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem. Mutual hostility between Jews and Samaritans endured for generations.
Jacob’s well, associated with the patriarchal promises (cf. Genesis 33:19; Joshua 24:32), stands as a symbol of ancestral faith — and now becomes the setting for new revelation.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
The note about Jesus’ fatigue underscores his true humanity.
Women usually came for water in a group, and because of the heat of the day, they usually came in the cool of the dawn or evening. It would have been very unusual for a woman to be drawing water at noon, and alone.
Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
By initiating a conversation with a Samaritan woman, Jesus crosses both ethnic and social boundaries. Jews avoided contact with Samaritans, and public conversation between an unrelated man and woman was culturally sensitive. John makes this clear later when he tells us that the disciples “were amazed that he was talking with a woman.”
Yet Jesus initiates dialogue — not to transgress for its own sake, but to seek and to save.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
The woman is taken aback by the impropriety of the request. Not only was it unheard of for a rabbi to speak familiarly with a woman in public, it was also unheard of for a Jew to request a drink from a Samaritan.
Jews considered Samaritans, and therefore their utensils for eating and drinking, unclean.
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’
The word used here for “gift” (dōrea) refers to a free, unearned gift. In the New Testament, it’s used almost exclusively to refer to God’s own gracious giving.
Jesus himself, whom the woman does not yet recognize, is the gift. She sees only a Jew who is a very bold and thirsty traveler.
you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Living water” can mean flowing water, but here it clearly points beyond the literal. In Israel’s tradition, living water symbolizes divine life and salvation (Ezekiel 47:1; Zechariah 14:8).
The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water?
The woman, like Nicodemus (John 3), misunderstands at a literal level — a pattern in John’s gospel that allows Jesus to reveal deeper truth.
Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?”
Jacob’s well was considered a sacred ancestral spot. The Samaritans also claimed descent from the patriarchs, through the Joseph tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and thus refer to Jacob as their father.
The woman is asking: if Jesus doesn’t intend to get water from this well, where will he get it? Even Jacob had no better source than this well.
Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Just as he did with Nicodemus, Jesus uses this misunderstanding as an opportunity for instruction.
He points out that the water from Jacob’s well satisfies temporarily, but the water he gives is enough to satisfy one forever. This anticipates both the gift of the Spirit (John 7:37-39) and sacramental grace, especially baptism.
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
It’s unclear whether the woman still misunderstands or is joining in on the metaphor.
Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.”
Jesus changes the subject, which launches a conversation about proper worship.
Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
Jesus demonstrates his supernatural knowledge by revealing her personal history. His tone is not accusatory; he affirms her honesty: What you have said is true. This is the first step in her realizing his true identity.
Nothing in the text says she was promiscuous. That assumption is a later Christian stereotype, not a biblical claim. In the ancient world, a woman could lose husbands through death, abandonment, or divorce (initiated by the husband, since women could not initiate divorce in Jewish or Samaritan law). A series of such losses would leave her socially vulnerable and economically dependent.
“The one you have now is not your husband,” suggests she is currently living with a man who is not her husband, but again, the text does not specify why. There are several possibilities, including being taken in by a relative or a levirate-like arrangement.
Jesus is naming her suffering, not her sin.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Jesus’ unexplained knowledge of her marital situation gives the woman her first, partial insight into his identity, prompting her to recognize him as a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Her recognition of him as a prophet leads her to bring up the central theological dispute between Jews and Samaritans: the proper place of worship.
Deuteronomy 12:5-6 commands Israel to worship at a single chosen place, though it does not name the site. The Jews identified this place with Jerusalem, supported by prophetic texts such as Isaiah 2:3 and 24:3. This conversation occurs at the foot of Mount Gerizim (“this mountain”), the Samaritan sanctuary. Samaritans revered it because the patriarchs had sacrificed there (Genesis 12:7; 33:20), and their version of Deuteronomy 27:4 held that Israel first built an altar there upon entering the land
Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews.
Jesus affirms Israel’s unique role in salvation history. God’s promises and covenant are fulfilled through the Jewish people.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
With Jesus’ coming, worship is no longer tied to sacred geography.
“Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit, and “truth” is revealed fully in Christ himself (cf. John 14:6). In the age of fulfillment, authentic worship is participation in the Trinitarian life: offered to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
The “hour” has begun because Jesus inaugurates the new covenant that will reach its climax in his Paschal Mystery. Through this, the Holy Spirit will dwell in the Church, removing former barriers such as the division between Jew and Samaritan and the requirement of a single designated place of worship.
The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
The conversation then moves to the identity of the Messiah.
This is peculiar language for a Samaritan, since Samaritans accepted only the Torah as Scripture and therefore rejected the Jewish, prophetic expectation of a Davidic Messiah. Yet they did anticipate a coming figure, the Taheb, a Mosaic “Restorer” promised in Deuteronomy 18:15-18.
John renders her expectation in the familiar messianic terms of his audience.
Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”
In Greek, egō eimi — “I AM.”
This echoes divine self-revelation (cf. Exodus 3:14) and constitutes a decisive disclosure of Jesus’ identity as Messiah. Remarkably, this explicit self-identification occurs not before religious elites, but before a Samaritan woman — underscoring the universality of salvation.
This is the one occasion before his trial when Jesus is recorded designating himself as the Messiah.
At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
The disciples’ reaction reveals the weight of the ethnic, religious, and gender boundaries Jesus is crossing.
Despite their surprise, the disciples choose not to interrupt. They seem to be trusting Jesus’ judgment, even if they don’t understand it.
Perhaps in their silence, the disciples are beginning to confront the wideness of Jesus’ mission.
The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?”
Leaving her water jar — the very reason she had come — symbolizes a shift from physical to spiritual thirst. She invites the entire town: Come and see.
In John’s Gospel, she is the first evangelist, the first person to bring others to Jesus through her testimony. A marginalized woman becomes the unexpected herald of the Messiah.
Unlike other moments in the Gospels when Jesus cautions silence, here the testimony is allowed to spread freely: the harvest is ready.
They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
Like the Samaritan woman earlier, the disciples misunderstand by remaining at the literal level.
John’s gospel highlights this recurring pattern: earthly categories must give way to spiritual realities.
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.
In these words, Jesus sums up his entire career. His entire earthly life, culminating in the Cross, is the fulfillment of the Father’s salvific will.
His sustenance is obedience to the Father.
Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’?
This appears to be some sort of Palestinian proverb. It takes four months from planting to harvest. Drawing on this, Jesus teaches that God’s saving work is already at hand.
I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
The harvest imagery points to the readiness of hearts, including those long considered outsiders. This harvest is of God’s planting and is ready now (see Matthew 9:37-38).
In this divine plan, sowers and reapers rejoice together; grace precedes and exceeds human effort.
For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”
Jesus is pointing out that the disciples are being sent to “reap” a harvest they did not initiate. Others — prophets, patriarchs, John the Baptist, and even Jesus himself in his conversation with the Samaritan woman — have already “sown” by preparing hearts to receive the truth.
Evangelization is never a solitary endeavor. The work of sowing and reaping belongs to the whole people of God across time, and the disciples are being drawn into a mission that began long before they arrived.
All participate in one divine work, and all share in its joy.
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
Faith deepens in stages: from testimony, to encounter, to personal conviction. The marginalized become the first to recognize what others have not yet seen. The Word takes root and multiplies.
The progression described here is extraordinary. The Samaritans move beyond seeing Jesus as a prophet or possible Messiah to confessing him as Savior of the world, a universal claim that transcends ethnic and religious boundaries.
In revealing himself to them, Jesus anticipates the Church’s mission to all nations: the living water is offered without distinction, and the harvest is for the whole world.
Connections and Themes
From thirst to living water. In our first reading, Israel thirsts in the wilderness and doubts God’s presence: Is the LORD in our midst or not? Water flows from the rock at Horeb, revealing both human rebellion and divine fidelity.
John’s gospel presents Jesus as the fulfillment of that scene. At Jacob’s well, a deeper thirst is exposed — not merely physical, but spiritual. Jesus offers “living water,” identifying himself as the true and abiding source of life. What was temporary and external in the desert becomes personal and interior in Christ.
The rock struck in the wilderness prefigures Christ, from whose pierced side living water will flow (cf. John 19:34). What Moses mediated imperfectly, Jesus gives definitively. The question at Massah is answered in the Incarnation: God is indeed in our midst.
The gift within. Our second reading deepens what John proclaims. Jesus promises living water; Paul explains how that water is given: The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
The external water of Exodus becomes, in the gospel, a spring welling up within; in Romans, it is identified explicitly as the Holy Spirit, poured into believers through Christ’s saving death.
The Samaritan woman’s thirst mirrors the human condition Paul describes: helpless, estranged, yet loved. Christ dies for the ungodly; Christ offers living water to one socially and religiously estranged. In both, grace precedes merit.
The First Scrutiny. The Third Sunday of Lent marks the first of the Church’s ancient scrutinies, when those preparing for Baptism are called to confront the deeper thirsts of the human heart. (In Years B and C, the gospel readings for Year A are used when catechumens are present.)
Placed within the larger Lenten arc — living water, light of the world, and resurrection and life — today’s gospel reading reveals that Baptism is not merely cleansing, but rebirth from within. The catechumen learns that salvation begins with desire: recognizing one’s thirst and daring to ask for more than the world can give.
For what do we thirst?
Sunday Readings 