Announcements: 3rd Sunday of Lent Year A

Dear Holy Rosary Mission Parishioners, here are a few announcements:

Gospel: Jesus, in the Gospel about "The Woman at the Well" asks her to choose the living water. Please see homily and readings below.

Confirmation and First Communion: The Archbishop will be here the 29th of May to celebrate the Sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation. Those to be confirmed will be Johanna Belleque, Joshua Ingram, Brian Venua, Walter Reynolds, and Anthony Reynolds. To all Sponsors, please be present next week for the first Scrutiny.

Around the Mission: Our Cherokee Warrior is still waiting parts in King Salmon. It will hopefully be flyable sometime this week.

Easter Sunday: Bernina Venua is preparing for a children's Easter egg hunt after Mass on Easter Sunday. Easter Mass this year will not be on Saturday eve, but on Easter Sunday at 10:00 AM.

Have a wonderful week and see you Sunday! Fr. Scott


Homily and Readings:

3rd Lent Sun A DLG 2011, Ex 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2&5-8; John 4: 5-42

Have you ever been dying of thirst? I have. I can remember one time when my dad and I were out hunting and we got lost in the woods. Every one of us has probably been dying of thirst at least once in our lives?

Even the Israelites in the reading for Exodus, God’s chosen people, thirsted for water in the desert. No one is exempt form becoming thirsty.

The word thirst can be used when we have a craving for anything. We thirst for the newest and fastest car, computer, or snow machine. We thirst for approval, prestige, and status. We thirst for comfort, pleasure, and gratification.

The woman at the well thirsted. She thirsted for water. But she also thirsted for something else. She thirsted for understanding. She thirsted for insight. She thirsted of knowledge. She thirsted for truth…and Jesus quenched that thirst.

Jesus offered the Samaritan women a different way to quench her thirst. He offered her living water.

About Living Water, the theologian Hans von Balthasar says this, “Earthly water again makes thirsty, but to those who believe, Jesus' water quenches thirst forever.”

Saint Ignatius of Antioch says, “There is no thirsting in me for any earthly thing. Rather within me is the living water, which says deep inside me: "Come to the Father. I want only God's bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and for drink, I crave his blood, which is love that cannot perish.”

The Samaritan Woman at the Well knew the quality of water at Jacobs well. Her thirst will be quenched, but only for a short period of time. Sound familiar? Earthly possessions, shopping sprees, Drugs, and alcohol will only quench our thirst for a brief time.

But Jesus is making her choose between the well water and another kind of water and living water. She is very curious about the living water. Jesus makes her choose between the two.

The water Jesus offers is a long-term plan for the salvation of her the woman’s soul. The water from Jesus will quench her spiritual thirst forever. It will give her eternal life. The Woman made a choice. She chose Christ, the living water.

Those being confirmed this May have a similar choice. They can choose the well water or the water Jesus has to offer.

We have all chosen the water Jesus offers or we wouldn’t be here right now. But have we chosen Christ everyday or just on Sundays? How do you handle temptation and peer pressure. Are you able to acknowledge your sins? Are you able to recognize the grace being offered you? Are you able to choose correctly between the well water and the living water? My advice, choose the living water everyday. It will quench your thirst forever (477 Words)?

Ex 17:3-7 - Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?" So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!" The LORD answered Moses, "Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink." This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD in our midst or not?"

Rom 5:1-2&5-8 - Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access (by faith) to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

John 4: 5-42 - So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, "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." (The woman) said to him, "Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come back." The woman answered and said to him, "I do not have a husband." Jesus answered her, "You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.' For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true." The woman said to him, "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking with you." At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, "What are you looking for?" or "Why are you talking with her?" The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, "Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?" They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Could someone have brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'In four months the harvest will be here'? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work." Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me everything I have done." When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, "We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."