Friday of the Third Week of Lent: Daily Lenten Meditations

AND JESUS WEPT 

Lazarus, His friend, had died. Jesus stood by the silent grave. There was anguish written on His sacred face. His great, manly Heart was broken with grief, human grief at the loss of one He loved—“and Jesus wept.” Tears filled His eyes, great scalding tears that overflowed upon His cheeks and fell like dew upon the earth—the human tears of the gentle Christ.

“And Jesus wept.” How much that tells me of my Divine Friend! It tells me in terms of infinite tenderness of a Heart acquainted with human woe, of a Heart that feels as my heart feels, of a Heart that responds to the human need of human affection, of a Heart that can bleed when stabbed by the knife of cruel separation from human loves.

“And Jesus wept.” How close it brings Jesus to me! For it makes Him so like myself. As I see His tears I know that He understands my tears. I know that He understands when my soul is harrowed with pain, when sorrow has made my heart its home. I know that the cry that escapes my lips as I stand by the tomb of one I have loved, or by the grave of my buried hopes—I know that my cry has a meaning for Him fuller and deeper than words can tell.

“And Jesus wept.” Yes, Jesus wept, but without bitterness, wept and His sorrow was holy, His tears were sacred. Is it always so with me? I too weep. But is my sorrow always holy? Are my tears always sacred? Is there not, at times, bitterness in my grief, rebellion in my suffering? Let me pause and reflect.

Jesus, Divine Friend, have mercy on us.

EPISTLE AND GOSPEL: Taken from the Angelus Press 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

EPISTLE:  Num: 20: 1-3, 6-13

During the forty years passed in the desert, Moses and Aaron asked God to bring forth from the rock (a figure of Jesus Christ) a spring of living water, so that all the people could quench their thirst.

In those days the children of Israel came together against Moses and Aaron: and making a sedition, they said: Give us water that we may drink. And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them Thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur. And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink. Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as He had commanded him, and having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous: Can we bring you forth water out of this rock? And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you have not believed Me, to sanctify Me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them. This is the water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and He was sanctified in them.

GOSPEL:  Jn. 4:5-42

During these forty days of Lent the Church entreats our Lord Jesus Christ to give us the living water about which He spoke to the woman of Samaria near Jacob’s well, the water which quenches the thirst of our souls forever.

At that time Jesus came to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar, near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith to her: Give Me to drink. (For His disciples were gone into the city to buy meats.) Then the Samaritan woman saith to Him: How dost Thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and Who He is that saith to thee: Give Me to drink: thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. The woman saith to Him: Sir, Thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep: from whence then hast Thou living water? Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof, himself and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her: Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever: but the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting. The woman saith to Him: Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw. Jesus saith to her: Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: Thou hast said well, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy hus-band: this thou hast said truly. The woman saith to Him: Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers adored on this mountain, and You say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore. Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe Me that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem adore the Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore Him. God is a spirit: and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith to Him: I know that the Messias cometh (Who is called Christ). Therefore when He is come, He will tell us all things. Jesus saith to her: I am He, Who am speaking with thee. And immediately His disciples came: and they wondered that He talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest Thou? or, Why talkest Thou with her? The woman therefore left her waterpot and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there: Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done: is not He the Christ? They went therefore out of the city, and came unto Him. In the meantime, the disciples prayed Him, saying: Rabbi, eat. But He said to them: I have meat to eat which you know not. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought Him to eat? Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work. Do not you say: There are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? Behold I say to you: Lift up your eyes, and behold that the fields are already white for the harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting: that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together. For in this is the saying true: that it is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth. I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labor: others have labored, and you have entered into their labors. Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: He told me all things whatsoever I have done. So when the Samaritans were come to Him, they desired that He would tarry there. And He abode there two days. And many more believed in Him because of His own word. And they said to the woman: We now believe, not for thy saying: for we ourselves have heard Him, and know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.