3rd Sunday of Lent - Pagola/ Vally D'Souza sj

Third Sunday in Lent (A) 23 March 2014

At ease with God

José Antonio Pagola

 It’s a charming scene. Tired from the journey, Jesus is sitting at the well of Jacob. Soon a woman arrives to  draw water. She belongs to a semi-pagan people, despised by the Jews. Quite spontaneously Jesus begins to talk to her. He is incapable of despising anyone. Rather, he pleads with great tenderness: “Woman, may I have some water.”

   The woman is surprised. How dare he make contact with a Samaritan! How does he stoop to speak to an unknown woman? The next words of Jesus will surprise her still more: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

   There are many people who, through all these years, have  been distancing themselves from God, without noticing what was really happening in their hearts. Today God happens to be a stranger to them. Everything to do with him seems empty and meaningless to them: a childish world ever more remote.

   I understand them. I know exactly how they feel. I, too, have gone on slowly distancing myself from that “God of my childhood”, who awakened in me so many fears, discomfort and unease. Probably, without Jesus I would never have found a God who today is for me a Mystery of goodness: a friendly, welcoming presence in whom I can always confide.

   I have never felt drawn to the task of verifying my faith with scientific proofs: I think it is a mistake to treat the mystery of God as if it were a task needed to be proved in a laboratory. Neither have religious dogmas helped me to find God. I have quite simply allowed myself to be carried by a trust in Jesus that has kept growing through the years.

   I would not be able to say exactly how my faith is sustained through a religious crisis which also shakes me up as it does everyone else. I would only say that Jesus has drawn me to live faith in God in a simple way from the depths of my being. If I listen, God does not remain silent. If I open up to him, he does not close up. If I open my heart to him, he accepts me. If I surrender to him, he sustains me. If I collapse, he raises me up.

   I  believe that the first and most important experience is to find ourselves comfortable with God because we find him a “saving presence.” When someone knows what it is to be at ease with God because, in spite of our mediocrity, mistakes and egoism, he receives us just the way we are, and encourages us to face life  peacefully, he will not easily abandon his faith. Today many people abandon God before having known him. If they had the experience of God Jesus communicates, they would seek him.