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Petersboat
An Unexpected Restoration to Life | The Monday After
00:12:34
Life isn't programmed, but it isn't entirely random either. It seems that Our Lord knew the Samaritan woman would be at the well, just as He knows where to find us when we're hiding, or just in need of restoration.
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This week's episode of the Monday after
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will be a little different.
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I'm going to invite you to listen to a recording of the 12 o' clock mass homily that I preached today. This is still Sunday, and I'll post this this evening, because tomorrow morning, Monday, I'll be leaving early to go visit my nieces at their college and they go to the same school, so I'm excited to see them. But I'll be back before next weekend and they'll be looking forward to seeing you again too. And as we say so often in the church, I wish you a peaceful and prayerful week. Remember remembering that the peace flows from the prayer, because prayer is opening our
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heart to the love of God.
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And as we're reconciled to him, we are capable of loving one another. And when we can love, then we are at peace.
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Whenever I hear this gospel passage myself, I experience this desire that the Spirit of God is promising us. I just want to stay with it forever. There's so much here. It would be wonderful to spend eternity just pondering this one encounter between the woman of the well and Jesus. Of course, we don't have that kind of time today. We've got a baptism and also prayers to pray for the adults preparing for reception into the church this Easter. But perhaps we don't have to spend too much time beyond saying one word today about this. This woman came to Jesus at noon midday to draw water because the other women wouldn't go with her to the well because she's had five husbands and the man she lives with now is not her husband. So the other women perhaps are a little afraid to associate with her. But also she just may feel incapable of really loving the way that friends do. Or felt herself so insecure that it was best just to go to the well alone. Maybe she started to experience as we do sometimes. Like, I don't have it in me to deal with people right now. I can't pour myself out in love for anyone right now. So perhaps she just protects her little heart and goes midday to the well. But surprise, surprise, Jesus is there, and with the Word he breaks into her heart. But not to crush her, but to open her heart and say, do not be afraid of the fact that you cannot love perfectly and eternally and always. But if you would open your heart to me, I will pour my love into you and you will find yourself renewed and restored. And you can leave that little bucket here by the well, you can go back to Samaria and you can pour out what I would offer to you. And that's exactly what she does. He does break into her heart with a word that identifies the very nature of her insecurity and her wanting to hide in the first place about her relationships with all these men. But then she allows him to pour his love into her, and she runs back to the town and says, come meet this man who knows me, who loves me with an intimacy that is greater than anything I've ever experienced in any natural man. He might be the Christ, the one who himself is anointed by the Spirit, because when he speaks, something happens to me. Come see. And they do. The Samaritans themselves go to him and they invite him to come to them. And they say to her, we now believe because of how his word cut us to the heart too, and how, as it did, he filled us with that spirit that we see in you. So here's an example of what it might look like when this kind of thing happens. I'll share what happened to me a couple weeks ago. It was midweek and midday around 1:30. I had to shop food shop and get the food in the fridge and get back to my life because I had appointments before and coming in after and then evening events. So I said to the women in the office, I gotta run to the supermarket. I gotta do shopping now. I'm not gonna have time. I'll be right back. I'm gonna try to do this in an hour, maybe hour and a half, when all is said and done. And I'm saying I'm not going to go to stop and shop or Trader Joe's because I don't have it right now to pour myself out in conversation with people. I'm already feeling a little drained as it is. So I went to the IGA up in Fort Salonga, which is where I go when I try to hide, basically. So I went up there and sure enough, it's quiet, right? Most often, it's a great little supermarket. Those of you who shop there know. It's like all the products are right out on the edge of the shelves with the labels turned out. I'm like, I love this place. This place is nice. Anyway, it's just so nicely laid out, but it's quiet. And then after beginning to shop a little bit on the right side of the store, moving my way into the middle, a woman meets me in the middle aisle and she stops me to talk, and I'm like, all right, here we go. And she starts, like. She says, how tall are you? Anyway, I go, what's that? She goes, you're tall. How tall are you anyway? I said, oh, I don't know, maybe like, maybe six, two, six, three, maybe. She goes, yeah, because I'm looking at you, I'm looking at this guy saying, look at this guy. He's so tall. He's so tall. I'm looking at him saying, wow, he can, like, see everything. He can reach everything. Must be nice to be so tall. I'm like, yeah, it is. But it can be hard sometimes because you can't hide when you're tall. And I say, and she says, you know, when I come back again in this life, I'm going to come back as a tall person. I want to come back as a tall person. I. I said, I think you're perfect just the way you are. She goes, well, you gotta try to accept yourself as you are. Look, if you're tall, you're tall. You gotta try to deal with it on and on. I'm like, what is going on? This is exactly the kind of thing, right? But she's breaking in because I am a little self conscious about being tall and standing out sometimes, right, Mark? So you're aware of it, that you can't hide. It's not so easy to hide. And then now, Frank, I'm coming to get you. As I'm done shopping, I'm checking out. She's there because we're the only two people in the store. She's finishing up a conversation she just had with the cashier. She's putting her things in her bag. I'm putting things on the belt myself. And then she turns to me again. I go, here we go, round two. And she goes, you know, look, if you're bald, you're bald. I'm not even kidding. That's what she's doing. I'm like, who are you? What are you doing? She goes, if you bald, you bald, you gotta just love yourself as you are, you know, like that's. You gotta just try to be okay with being who you are. This is what I. She goes, I used to put a lot of makeup on every day for my. I just tried to accept myself as I am. You gotta, like, just be okay with who you are, you know, maybe. Look, I said, look, I'm bringing in the beard to try to compensate a little bit. Yeah, exactly. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know, you do what you gotta do, but you gotta try to love yourself as you be okay with who you are. Okay? So not only was I not able to avoid seeing anyone as I tried to hide midday, feeling drained. But I was approached by someone and I'm not saying I know this, and I did have a collar on, but she might have been Jewish because she was very sharp and very funny and very talkative. And I wanted to say, I'm like, why are you a Jew talking to me, a Catholic priest? I like the way the woman at the well said to Jesus, why are you a Jew speaking to me, a Samaritan? But I say it to you because I think Christ spoke a word to me through this woman that day. Like Robbie, when you feel drained and you want to harden your heart so you can protect that last bit of water you have, open your heart to me and I will fill you with, with life giving water again. And you will be able to put, you know this, he says to me, you should know this. But you see, he put his finger on. And they're two of the more superficial insecurities I have, but they're real. You know, sometimes I don't want to be as tall and sometimes I don't want to be as bald. But those are just examples of like, it was a light little touch, but it was Christ saying, don't be afraid to be who you are, know how loved you are, and that I'm always here to offer you the love you're trying to offer to one another. I hope that those of you who are married and experience your spouse as sometimes draining, instead of resenting him or her for being that, would just see that as an opportunity and a time to say to Jesus, please fill me with the mercy that I want to show to my spouse or to the children who could sometimes be a little draining. Lord God, give me what I am so trying to give to them. Just let him give it to you. Let Jesus be for you what you want to be for your children kind of thing, right? And I say it to myself as a priest, like the Lord saying, let me be for you what you're trying to be for others. But you can just see why the church would give us this psalm if today you hear his voice harden, not your hearts like no woman. I don't want to talk to you right now. But that was the Word coming into my life and that story, Christ speaking to me. But the reason I wanted to protect my heart is because I thought she was going to drain the last bit of water I had. But in some mysterious way, as I left the store and I prayed daytime prayer on the way with my app, and I prayed a decade of the rosary before coming back in here to the parking lot. And I was ready for whatever else the day had in store. She cracked the heart open, and he poured grace in. And I had it to give. But I was guarding my heart that day, afraid of losing the little that I had left. And that's why St. Paul said to us today, too, he has poured out his love to us. You recognize those words from the confessional? That after God reconciles the world to himself through the Son, he then poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. And those of you who do benefit from the celebration of reconciliation from time to time, you know how you bring the grace of that sacrament back into the home. You feel more capable of loving your family and those who drain you at work because of that confession. And it's not just because you feel less guilt. It's because we've been filled with his love in that sacrament. It makes our baptism brand new. We're about to baptize little Mason. Now, that life of Christ is poured into us in baptism, but we lose it sometimes as we sin, as we harden our hearts. And after just pouring ourself out in love, we need to be refilled. And the reconciliation fills us again with the love of God. Like you heard in the first reading when Moses strikes the rock and water pours forth this image of, like Christ striking our hardened heart so that he might pour his love into that heart. So I like to remember that experience of the woman in the store, because it was an unexpected encounter that pierced my heart but ended up, like, restoring me. And it teaches me I'll end with this, that for all of us, there will be many people in this world who drain us because we have to pour out our love for them. And they're in our own family, but we don't have to resent that about them. After all, look how many people pour themselves out in love for us. Who are we draining sometimes by our needs, right? And yet you can see how they're okay with that, and they're happy to do that. But the way that they do that is by letting God fill their heart with his love. There will be people in this world from whom we can drink. Praise God. There will be still more people that we need to pour ourselves out for, and they'll all be Christ. What did he say to the woman before? He said, I'll give you life giving water. Give me a drink of water. She was like, I'm not in the mood, guy. Give me a drink of water. And she's like, what are you talking about? Why are you even talking to me? Don't you know I got nothing to offer? If you knew who was asking you for water, you would ask him for water and he would give you a life giving water and you'd never be thirsty again. It will become in you a well springing up to eternal life. Alright, so Lord God, remind us this day that when we find ourselves protecting and hardening our hearts because we're afraid of giving that last bit of love, we've got that. That's the time to pray a little Hail Mary to open my heart and then pray in little Our Father for the sun to be poured in to my heart. Then I can find myself able to love again.