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3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A, 12 March 2023 Note: Homilies & Angelus / Regina Caeli of Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI & Pope Francis I had been compiled for you after the Mass Readings below. Happy Reading! Liturgical Colour: Violet.
Mass Readings from ETWN, USCCB, Universalis (Christian Art). See our Mass Readings extracts with pictures in Encouragements-384-385. 8-) First Reading: Exodus 17:3-7, Responsorial: Psalm 95:1-2,6-9 , 2nd Reading: Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 & Gospel: John 4:5-42 (or John 4:5-15, 19-26, 39-42) , CCTNtv, Gospel Video.
Others:
Life Is Worth Living: The Woman at the Well – Venerable Fulton J. Sheen The Superiority Complex | Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
Please refer to https://twitter.com/Michael65413248 for some latest record. Take care, put on your facemask and stay healthy, because we love you! 8-)
1. Criminal Investigation Department, Singapore Police Force harassed Law-abiding Citizen. Latest! https://twitter.com/Michael65413248/status/1510086218851270658 (2 April 2022) #Singapore Police Force harassing the same law abiding business owner again from 92298844, 97397514, 83487591, 96645914, 63914706, 82825465, 97378102, 90360045, 92981234! They can’t perform to contain COVID, so they bully to appear busy? Shameless? You decide! 2. See another Police case to frame against the Innocent! Please spread the News to help them who commit no crime. Many Thanks. Till this day, the harassment continues and there is no apology from the Rulers and no compensation paid for damages inflicted. 3. See the Bloggers went MISSING before / after the Singapore General Election on 10 July 2020. Please pray for their safety as we search for them actively. Many Thanks. 5. Do you want this kind of “pastoral care”? Latest updates!
Homilies, Angelus / Regina Caeli
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-385. 8-) Profiles of Vicente Soler, his six Augustinian Recollect companions and the diocesan priest, Manuel Martín, Nicolas Barré, of the Order of Minims, Anna Schäffer.
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-386. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-386. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-386. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-386. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-387. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-387. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-388. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-388. 8-)
The Gospel for this Third Sunday of Lent presents Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman (cf. John 4:5-42). The encounter takes place as Jesus is crossing Samaria, a region between Judea and Galilee inhabited by people whom the Hebrews despised, considering them schismatic and heretical. But this very population would be one of the first to adhere to the Christian preaching of the Apostles. While the disciples go into the village to buy food, Jesus stays near a well and asks a woman for a drink; she had come there to draw water. From this request a dialogue begins. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”. Jesus responded: If you knew who I am, and the gift I have for you, you would have asked me for and I would have given you “living water”, a water that satisfies all thirst and becomes a boundless spring in the heart of those who drink it (cf. vv. 9-14).
Going to the well to draw water is burdensome and tedious; it would be lovely to have a gushing spring available! But Jesus speaks of a different water. When the woman realizes that the man she is speaking with is a prophet, she confides in him her own life and asks him religious questions. Her thirst for affection and a full life had not been satisfied by the five husbands she had had, but instead, she had experienced disappointment and deceit. Thus, the woman was struck by the great respect Jesus had for her, and when he actually spoke to her of true faith as the relationship with God the Father “in spirit and truth”, she realized that this man could be the Messiah, and Jesus does something extremely rare — he confirms it: “I who speak to you am he” (v. 26). He says he is the Messiah to a woman who had such a disordered life.
Dear brothers and sisters, the water that gives eternal life was poured into our hearts on the day of our Baptism; then God transformed and filled us with his grace. But we may have forgotten this great gift that we received, or reduced it to a merely official statistic; and perhaps we seek “wells” whose water does not quench our thirst. When we forget the true water, we go in search of wells that do not have clean water. Thus this Gospel passage actually concerns us! Not just the Samaritan woman, but us. Jesus speaks to us as he does to the Samaritan woman. Of course, we already know him, but perhaps we have not yet encountered him personally. We know who Jesus is, but perhaps we have not countered him personally, spoken with him, and we still have not recognized him as our Saviour. This Season of Lent is a good occasion to draw near to him, to counter him in prayer in a heart-to-heart dialogue; to speak with him, to listen to him. It is a good occasion to see his face in the face of a suffering brother or sister. In this way we can renew in ourselves the grace of Baptism, quench our thirst at the wellspring of the Word of God and of his Holy Spirit; and in this way, also discover the joy of becoming artisans of reconciliation and instruments of peace in daily life.
May the Virgin Mary help us to draw constantly from grace, from the water that springs from the rock that is Christ the Saviour, so that we may profess our faith with conviction and joyfully proclaim the wonders of the love of merciful God, the source of all good. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 19 March 2017)
March 15 2020, Santa Marta Mass | Pope Francis Homily
Angelus, 15 March 2020 Angelus Video (American Sign Language). Angelus Text. Extracts: The Gospel passage from today, the Third Sunday of Lent, tells us of Jesus’ meeting with a Samaritan woman (cf. John 4:5-42). He is on a journey with his disciples and takes a break near a well in Samaria. The Samaritans were considered heretics by the Jews, and were very much despised as second-class citizens. Jesus is tired, thirsty. A woman arrives to draw water and he says to her: “Give me a drink” (v. 7). Breaking every barrier, he begins a dialogue in which he reveals to the woman the mystery of living water, that is, of the Holy Spirit, God’s gift. Indeed, in response to the woman’s surprised reaction, Jesus says: “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” (v. 10).
Water is the focus of this dialogue. On the one hand, water is an essential element that slakes the body’s thirst and sustains life. On the other, water is a symbol of divine grace that gives eternal life. In the biblical tradition God is the source of living water: as it says in Psalms and in the Prophets: distancing oneself from God, the source of living water, and from his Law, leads to the worst drought. This is the experience of the People of Israel in the desert. During their long journey to freedom, as they were dying of thirst, they cried out against Moses and against God because there was no water. Thus, God willed Moses to make water flow from a rock, as a sign of the Providence of God, accompanying his people and giving them life (cf. Exodus 17:1-7).
The Apostle Paul, too, interprets that rock as a symbol of Christ. He says: “And that rock was Christ” (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4). It is the mysterious figure of his presence in the midst of the People of God on their journey. Christ, in fact, is the Temple from which, according to the prophets, flows the Holy Spirit, the living water which purifies and gives life. Whoever thirsts for salvation can draw freely from Jesus, and the Spirit will become a wellspring of full and eternal life in him/her. The promise of living water that Jesus made to the Samaritan woman becomes a reality in his Passion: from his pierced side flowed “blood and water” (John 19:34). Christ, the Lamb, immolated and risen, is the wellspring from which flows the Holy Spirit who remits sins and regenerates new life.
This gift is also the source of witness. Like the Samaritan woman, whoever personally encounters the living Jesus feels the need to talk about him to others, so that everyone might reach the point of proclaiming that Jesus “is truly the saviour of the world” (John 4:42), as the woman’s fellow townspeople later said. Generated to new life through Baptism, we too are called to witness the life and hope that are within us. If our quest and our thirst are thoroughly quenched in Christ, we will manifest that salvation is not found in the “things” of this world, which ultimately produce drought, but in he who has loved us and will always love us: Jesus, our Saviour, in the living water, that he offers us.
May Mary, Most Holy, help us nourish a desire for Christ, font of living water, the only one who can satisfy the thirst for life and love that we bear in our hearts. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 15 March 2020)
Angelus, 12 March 2023 Angelus Video (American Sign Language). Angelus Text. Extracts: … In fact, Jesus’ thirst is not only physical. It expresses the deepest thirsts of our lives, and above all, a thirst for our love. He is more than a beggar. He “is thirsty” for our love. And this will emerge at the culminating moment of his passion, on the cross, where, before dying, Jesus will say: “I thirst” (John 19:28). That thirst for love brought him to descend, to lower himself, to abase himself, to be one of us.
But the Lord who asks for a drink is the One who gives to drink. Meeting the Samaritan woman, he speaks to her about the Holy Spirit’s living water. And from the cross, blood and water flow from his pierced side (cf. John 19:34). Thirsty for love, Jesus quenches our thirst with love. And he does with us what he did with the Samaritan woman – he comes to meet us in our daily life, he shares our thirst, he promises us living water that makes eternal life well up within us.
Give me a drink. There is a second aspect. These words are not only a request from Jesus to the Samaritan woman, but a cry – silent at times – that meets us every day and asks us to slake someone else’s thirst, to take care of someone else’s thirst. How many say ‘give me a drink’ to us – in our family, at work, in other places we find ourselves. They thirst for closeness, for attention, for a listening ear. People say it who thirst for the Word of God and need to find an oasis in the Church where they can drink. Give me a drink is a cry heard in our society, where the frenetic pace, the rush to consume, and especially indifference, that culture of indifference, generate aridity and interior emptiness. And – let us not forget this – ‘give me a drink’ is the cry of many brothers and sisters who lack the water to live, while our common home continues to be polluted and defaced. Exhausted and parched, she too “is thirsty”.
Before these challenges, today’s Gospel offers living water to every one of us who can become a refreshing spring for others. And so, like the Samaritan woman who leaves her jug at the well and went to call the people of her village (cf. v. 28), we too will no longer only think of slaking our own thirst, our material thirst, our intellectual or cultural thirst, but with the joy of having met the Lord, we will quench others’ thirst, giving meaning to someone else’s life, not as masters, but as servants of that Word of God who has thirsted for us, who continually thirsts for us. We will understand their thirst and share the love he has given to us… Pope Francis I (Angelus, 12 March 2023)
Chinese Translation for the Extracts above: …事实上，耶稣的口渴不仅仅是身体上的。 它表达了我们生命中最深切的渴望，尤其是对我们的爱的渴望。 祂不仅仅是一个乞丐。 祂“渴慕”我们的爱。这将在祂受难的高潮时刻出现，在十字架上，耶稣在死前说：“我渴了”（若望福音 19:28）。 对爱的渴望使祂下降，降低自己，贬低自己，成为我们中的一员。
但求水的主，就是赐水的那一位。 遇见撒玛利亚妇人，祂向她讲述了圣神的活水。从十字架上，血和水从祂被刺穿的肋旁流出（参见若望福音 19:34）。 渴慕爱，耶稣用爱解渴。 祂对我们所做的就像他对撒玛利亚妇人所做的那样——祂在我们的日常生活中与我们会面，祂分担我们的干渴，祂应许我们活水，使永生在我们里面涌流。
“给我水喝”还有有第二个方面：这些话不仅是耶稣对撒玛利亚妇女的要求，而且要我们遇到哭泣的人也努力的照顾他们的口渴。 有多少人对我们说“给我水喝” - 在我们的家庭，工作中，在其他地方我们发现自己。 他们渴望亲密，关注，倾听。 人们说渴望上主的圣言，就需要在教堂里找到可以喝水的绿洲。 “给我水喝” 是在我们社会中听到的哭泣，在那儿，疯狂的速度，急于消费，尤其是冷漠的文化产生的干旱和内在的空虚。 而且 - 让我们不要忘记这一点 - “给我水喝 ”是许多兄弟姐妹的哭泣，这些兄弟姐妹缺乏食水，我们的环境又继续受到污染，也筋疲力尽，也“渴了”。
在这些挑战面前，今天的福音为我们每个人提供了活水，我们也可以成为他人的活水泉。 因此，就像撒玛利亚妇女一样，在遇见主的喜悦中，我们会滿足别人“求水 ”的渴望，給别人的人生赋予意义，不是作为主人，而是以不断渴望我们上主的仆人。 我们将理解他们的渴望，并分享祂给我们的爱... This Translation is done with the help of Ms Bridget Goh. We note that our translation is imperfect, please email your feedback to “emmanuel.maria2000@yahoo.com.sg”. Thanks.
Daily Blessings to You from Emmanuel Goh & Friends
Note: This webpage has many hyperlinks to the Vatican Webpage. The above extracts were compiled for your easy reading. This Publication is aimed to encourage all of Goodwill around the World. It is not for business or profit purposes but it is our way to thank our Creator for His continuous blessings!
Compiled on 7 March 2020, 8:45 SGT Last updated: 13 March 2023, 21:08 SGT
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