Christ does not seek a mask: He seeks the heart

This Sunday, the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, brings earlier america 1 of the astir revealing encounters successful the Gospel, the gathering of Christ with the Samaritan Woman.

Christ does not simply walk done Samaria. He abolishes boundaries—ethnic, religious, and social. The Samaritan Woman is not simply a “random” woman, but a fig representing the full quality race. Christ undertakes a idiosyncratic salvation for a marginalized pistillate whom nary 1 would person considered important.

Christ does not attack a idiosyncratic with societal prestige. He does not conscionable a Pharisee, nor a teacher of the Law, nor idiosyncratic with a bully estimation successful society. He meets a pistillate wounded by sin, a pistillate who had experienced rejection by her chap quality beings, and yet it is to this pistillate that He some reveals and reveals Himself.

God descends into the good of our life, seeking contact, dialogue, and opening His heart.

Saint John Chrysostom notes: “He was not speaking lone of water, but He thirsted for the religion of the woman.”

The Church ne'er romanticized the beingness of the Samaritan Woman. The Fathers talk intelligibly astir her sinful life, yet astatine the aforesaid clip they respect the sincerity of her heart.

Saint John Chrysostom says that the Samaritan Woman did not go indignant erstwhile Christ revealed her sin, nor did she effort to warrant herself. On the contrary, she stood earlier Him with a tone of discipleship and a hunt for truth, and for this crushed Christ continued to uncover Himself to her.

The beatified Father particularly admires the information that this pistillate instantly becomes a missionary. “The pistillate says to Him: ‘I cognize that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When He comes, He volition archer america each things.’ The harlot philosophizes astir spiritual matters and brings the Divine Scriptures to her lips. Even if her assemblage had been immersed successful the impurity of fornication, her psyche had been purified done her notation to and speechmaking of the Divine Scriptures. ‘I cognize that the Messiah is coming.’ Behold spiritual progress; behold a harlot who knows each things. Observe however from the depths of the world she flew to the heavens. Jesus says to her, ‘I who talk to you americium He.’ What He concealed from galore apostles, He openly reveals to the harlot.”

The Golden-Mouthed Father concludes his homily by praising the missionary calling of Saint Photini: “But she near her h2o jar, entered the city, and cried retired to the citizens: ‘Come and spot idiosyncratic who told maine everything I ever did. Could this beryllium the Christ?’ She awakens their tendency to travel distant and beryllium caught. Just arsenic she herself had been caught successful the net, she desires to drawback others arsenic well. A harlot with the conscience of an apostle, who became stronger than the apostles themselves. For the apostles waited until the full Divine Economy had been fulfilled earlier opening their apostolic preaching. But the harlot, adjacent earlier the Resurrection, proclaims Christ. ‘I proclaim my sins successful bid to pb you. So that you whitethorn spot the God who came into the world, I publically uncover my faults.’”

What does the Samaritan Woman bash erstwhile she understands who Christ is? She leaves her h2o jar and runs into the city: “Come, spot a antheral who told maine everything I person done.”

Saint Cyril of Alexandria says that the abandonment of the h2o jar is not simply a applicable detail. It is simply a motion of spiritual transformation. The h2o jar symbolizes earthly desires and erstwhile concerns. The Samaritan Woman leaves down everything that until past had filled her life, due to the fact that she has present recovered the “living water.”

Here begins the large spiritual opposition presented by the Church. On the 1 manus are the radical of outward religiosity; radical who look pious, yet inwardly are ruled by pride, judgment, hardness of heart, and hypocrisy.

Saint Gregory Palamas emphasizes that God does not dwell successful a bosom filled with egotism, adjacent if it appears religious. On the contrary, the humble bosom becomes the spot of divine visitation.

On the different hand, stands the Samaritan Woman; a pistillate whom nine had stigmatized, a pistillate who avoided radical and went to the good astatine midday, successful the vigor of the day. She went to gully corruptible h2o and recovered the root of eternal life.

Christ reveals Himself to the Samaritan Woman erstwhile He says to her: “I americium He, the One speaking to you.” Seeing her bully disposition, He gradually leads her from worldly things to spiritual realities, from the h2o of the good to the surviving h2o of salvation, from curiosity to faith, and from religion to mission.

And present the tremendous quality betwixt the sinner and the hypocrite becomes apparent. The sinner tin beryllium saved erstwhile helium possesses humility. The hypocrite struggles to beryllium saved due to the fact that helium believes helium has nary request of repentance.

Saint Ephraim the Syrian says that taxation collectors and harlots often participate the Kingdom of God earlier others, not due to the fact that their sins were small, but due to the fact that their repentance was genuine.

Today’s Sunday is simply a almighty reply to each Pharisaical mentality that whitethorn dwell wrong us. Christ came to resurrect the quality idiosyncratic inwardly, and truthful He is moved much by a sinful idiosyncratic with a breached bosom than by a arrogant “righteous” man.

The Samaritan Woman did not person a axenic life, but she had a sincere search. She did not person grant successful the eyes of the world, but she possessed thirst for God, and this thirst became the opening of her holiness. For this reason, our Church remembers her not arsenic “the sinful Samaritan woman,” but arsenic Saint Photini, Equal-to-the-Apostles.

The satellite remembered her fall, but the Church remembers her repentance. The satellite saw her sin, but Christ saw her heart.

Let america truthful beryllium attentive contiguous lest we excessively person simply an outer and ceremonial religiosity. Perhaps we cognize however to talk astir God, yet bash not emotion the quality person. Perhaps we judge, condemn, and slander easily, portion our bosom remains acold from His Grace.

Christ does not question a mask. He does not question spiritual display. He does not question hypocritical piety. He seeks a existent and axenic heart.

In our revelatory brushwood with Christ, our full beingness is transformed into “a fountain of h2o springing up into eternal life.” The surviving water—that is, the connection of God, which gushes distant wrong the Church—revives our existence, which has been deadened by sin.

In our life, we excessively transportation a symbolic jar filled with insecurities, sins, and thirsts that cannot beryllium quenched. Christ awaits america astatine the “well” of supplication and the Divine Liturgy. He desires that we unfastened a dialog with Him, conscionable arsenic He erstwhile did with Cleopas and Luke connected the roadworthy to Emmaus, successful a revelatory dialog that led to the opening of the apostles’ eyes and the warming of their hearts. Let america travel Him and confess Him earlier the world!