Most of us have had times in our lives when we feel or experience a sense of alienation or distance from others. Perhaps times when we don’t feel part of the communities in which we live. It can be at any age, at home, school or work. Times perhaps when we sense that others do not approve of us, times when we avoid others because of what we may have done. Perhaps there has never been a time when we have not either been judged by others or when we judge those around us, which, God help us, we all do.

We see something of this in Sunday's gospel. Jesus is taking a journey, most likely on foot that would have taken Him a number of days. Interestingly He is in Samaritan country. There were centuries of animosity, even hatred, between Jews and Samaritans, for example each considered the other as being heretical in their concept and worship of God; interestingly however both believed in the coming of a Messiah. Why is Jesus in hostile territory? In any case He sits at a well, which is still there and is about 100 foot deep, it is midday and He is thirsty. A woman comes to the well and He asks her for a drink. In Jesus’ time men did not normally speak to women in public. Jews certainly did not speak to Samaritans.

The woman is there at the height of the heat of the day. Women would normally come to wells in the cool of the morning not noon. Perhaps she was not welcome to be with other women because, we learn later, of her bad reputation. Maybe the other women did not want to be seen with a woman “like her”; perhaps she knew that if she were there with others she would be judged, harassed and bullied. It is hard to understand the level of stigma she carried due to her being a Samaritan and by the events of her life in the society in which she lived.

And yet she is a thoughtful even compelling person and not without spirit. You get a sense that she is one of those people who despite being looked down on and even despised by others, she had seen and experienced a lot and that she still had some dignity intact, the dignity of a human being given to each and every one of us by God himself.

During the course of her dialogue with this stranger she moves from curiosity to belief, and then to evangelisation (from the Greek evangelion meaning "glad tidings"). Despite her own position of being at the bottom rung of her society she cannot keep this good news to herself; she brings her neighbours to belief that the Messiah is here and his kingdom established, not only for the nation of the Jews but for everyone where the temple of God is not just confined to Jerusalem or, for the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim, but amazingly, beautifully, is found in each and every human heart that has an encounter with God through His son Jesus whose very name means the one who saves.

Through the word and actions of Jesus for the woman at the well, and for us to, we experience the love of the Father for each and every one of us also that the Holy Spirit is lovingly placed in our hearts and souls. The gift given to us by Jesus is the very love at the heart of the life of the Holy Trinity itself. This is a perpetual fountain of divine love what wells up in our souls which, if we are faithful, will gradually transform us where we will share the divine life of God, something that is beautiful and eternal, though it is beyond our description and our imagination.

Like the Samaritan woman today, despite who we are, despite what we have may have done or not done, despite the condition of our lives, Jesus waits for us by the well of salvation, He wants to speak to us in our hearts and our souls, He invites us to change our lives through repentance, He offers us the refreshment of grace, and the nourishment of the sacraments in which He himself is truly present. He wants to be with us and desires us to want to be with Him in every moment of our earthly lives and in eternity. Like the woman at the well, it is up to us to choose life.

I hope and pray that Lent is going well for you. God bless and keep you all.

Fr Chris