THIRSTING FOR GOD

The gospel for this Sunday is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well (Jn 4:5-42). One verse caught my attention and has kept me thinking for a couple of days. It’s a statement that Jesus makes to the Samaritan woman: 

“Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.“

As I reflected on this verse, I kept asking myself why I still wind up thirsting for more. Jesus promises me that I will never thirst, and yet it seems to me that He is never quite enough. 

It occurs to me that maybe this is the human condition, to always be thirsty for something more. There are plenty of places in the Old Testament that witness to this. Just this morning, for example, we sang at Lauds Psalm 63: 

“Oh God, you are my God — It is you I seek!

For you, my body yearns; for you, my soul thirsts,

In a land parched, lifeless, and without water.“ (vv1-2). 

A favorite psalm verse of mine is

“My soul is thirsting for the Lord,

When shall I see him face to face.”

So, there it is again: To be thirsting for the Lord is part of our human condition.

The season of lent is designed to make us experience this built-in

incompleteness. Especially the practice of fasting. During this season, when we are preparing to celebrate the great feast of the resurrection, we are constantly reminded that we are by nature incomplete, that there is, as St. Augustine puts it, this God-shaped hole in the center of our being that cannot be filled by anything except God.

So I’ve decided not be too discouraged when I find that I am still thirsty after drinking of Christ, the Fountain of life. This side of heaven, the best I can do as an imperfect human being is to keep working at drawing closer to Christ and imitating him in his obedient suffering.