Water Walk #7, Lourdes

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you: “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. (John 4:10)

How could she have known, this woman of Samaria, who Jesus was? Jews and Samaritans did not mix, and if they did, they mixed rather badly.

Jesus surprises everyone when he addresses the Samaritan woman. The woman is not going to believe him straight away. But at least, she stops; she answers; she argues. As we come to this fountain, this is the first grace we should ask for: that again Jesus disconcerts us and that He may not let us go until we answer.

Jesus continues: Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. (John 4:13-14)

What is this water? It is the Holy Spirit. Jesus states it very clearly in Saint John’s gospel: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said: “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now He said this about the Spirit, which believers in Him were to receive. (John 7:37-39)

The woman from Samaria had not understood all that. She had been so disconcerted that she had left her jug there and then, and had run away to tell the people of the town.

All her life, Mary will have been surprised by her Son: from the visit of the angel, to the Cross. She did not understand everything straight away. But she kept everything in her heart and she believed; she hoped. She, who was full of grace, is to be found again in the Cenacle, with the disciples, when the Holy Spirit gives them the strength to risk their lives to proclaim the Gospel of the Resurrection.

Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of the Living Water, “Abode of the Holy Spirit,” make us ask for the Holy Spirit, Your Son assured us: the Father will not fail to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.