20250308 Third Sunday of Lent

Readings at USCCB.org Listen to Melissa & Alfred's reflection

Accepting and Loving Eyes

The line “He told me everything I have done.” reminds me of one of my fifth grade teachers: Mrs Swift.

To back up and give you some context, one of my fifth grade classmates, if he wasn’t a bully, was at least very disruptive in the classroom. I did my best to be on the other side of the school yard at recess and lunch. That student wore down the teacher we started fifth grade with into taking a medical leave. We had three or more other teachers that year. On top of that, two deaths in my family that year affected me deeply. 

You see, fifth grade was rough for me.

Mrs. Swift was the teacher we ended fifth grade with. She taught us for the last two or three months and things seemed to be better during that time. I don’t remember if the disruptive student was still there or had been moved out. 

Mrs. Swift saw something in me and she recommended me to the district gifted and talented program which put me on the college prep track. 

That she recommended me to the program was important, but there was something special in the way that she communicated that news to me, and in other interactions, that made me feel that she saw me and understood something about me.

My experience with Mrs. Swift is similar to what the woman at the well experienced with Jesus, except the woman had a much more awesome encounter.

The woman at the well was downtrodden and outcast and probably poor. We don’t know why the woman had five husbands and was with a boyfriend:

• Did one of the husbands die and leave her a widow?
• Did one beat and abuse her to the point that she had to leave?
• Did one husband not provide food and shelter?
• Did she just choose to leave one husband?
• Some combination of those or other scenarios?

Being a widow or unmarried or adulterous were enough to leave a woman poor and destitute, shunned and avoided. That this woman had five previous husbands and was with a boyfriend probably meant that she had no friends. The woman had to wait until all the other women got their water from the well and get her water when she’d be alone to avoid the judging stares and hateful comments.

And so it was this woman, used to keeping to herself and not being spoken to, happened upon Jesus. Normally, a Jewish man like Jesus would not speak to a Samaritan. But Jesus started the conversation and was fully present with her. By somehow telling the woman all that she had done, even though they had just met, Jesus was basically saying, I see you and how hard it’s been for you. 

Jesus was saying that God loves her.

As we go about our daily lives, especially this Lent, I pray that we look at the people around us, not with our judging and dismissive human eyes, but with the accepting and loving eyes, as Jesus teaches us in this story.

Our lesson this Sunday is about the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, when we go and speak our sins in confession. It’s interesting that in this Gospel story, it is Jesus who speaks of the woman’s sins. In revealing to the woman that he is the Messiah, he gives her the chance to believe and to have her soul saved, extending to her the forgiving love that we receive in the sacrament of penance.

--Alfred