[stephenkhoo]

HEALING THE PAIN AND EMPTINESS OF THE HUMAN HEART   

SCRIPTURE READINGS: EX 17:3-7;  ROM 5:1-2.5-8;  JN 4:5-42 (OR >< 4:5-15.19-26.39-42)
http://www.universalis.com/20140323/mass.htm

Many of us are seeking for fulfilment in life. We are created to be happy.  This was the plan of God right from the start of creation.  He put us in paradise and promised that He would look after us.  All we need is to trust Him and surrender ourselves to Him.   But unfortunately, man never believed that God loves him or could take care of his needs.   He only trusts in himself.

This was the case of the Israelites.  In the face of crisis, the physical thirst for water, they panicked and started to complain.  They grumbled against God.  “They put the Lord to the test by saying, ‘Is the Lord with us, or not?’”  The point is whether they could trust God completely to take care of them.

Similarly, the Samaritan woman too was seeking for happiness and fulfillment in life. Like the Israelites, she too was seeking for water.  She was thirsting after the wrong things in life.  She was living in a shallow way, never really asking the profound questions that motivate her in life.  She was living a mediocre life.  Her life was a boredom, having to come day after day to draw water from the well.  She found it such a chore and thus was hoping that Jesus could relieve her of this drudgery.

Indeed, we are all in the same situation of the Israelites and the Samaritan woman.   Their lives mirror ours.  The world promises us illusory happiness.  We think that if we have status in life, we will be happy but we are not because we lose our privacy.  We think with money and power we can be secure but we become even more anxious that these might be taken away.  We think that pleasures of the flesh can satisfy us but they do not.  Not only success in career but even our relationships are unfulfilling.  They never seem to satiate our thirst and hunger for more. That is why we are always restless, allowing ourselves to be driven from one thing to another, one project to another, one entertainment to another and one relationship to another.  Life for many of us is either such a burden or meaningless or at least so unfulfilling.  When we look back at our lives, we cannot but feel deceived by the world because we still experience so much void and emptiness in our lives.

So what is the deeper problem for the cause of this void?  The gospel tells us it is because of the lack of self-awareness.   We do not know ourselves.  This was the case of the Samaritan woman.  Only when she discovered her true self, was she liberated from her pains.  She not know did her true self, her true feelings and real motivations in life.  She was being carried along by the situations in her life.   Her sins and the consequences of her sins gave rise to more failed relationships and frustrations.   Indeed, this is true for us as well.  We are all so wounded by relationships because we are not capable of true love and selfless giving.  Our fears, anger, resentment, hopelessness, guilt and anxieties make us prisoners of ourselves.  Most of all, our prejudices, like the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, cause us to be separated and hostile to each other. Instead of looking deep into ourselves, we blame situations and people around us just, like the Israelites.  We seek escapism unfortunately, every time we are confronted with the truth about ourselves, like the woman.

Yet, no one can escape from the Lord.  He used her attempt to run away to help her discover the true faith.  How? Jesus led her to discover the true God.  Knowing God and the meaning of true worship, which is spirit and truth, will liberate us from ignorance about our identity and calling in life.  Only by knowing God, can we assuage our thirst which is a deep desire to know ourselves.

So what is this truth about the God we worship?  We need to know that God loves us unconditionally.  We need to experience a love that is truly loving.  A love that is rooted in truth means that it must be unconditional, selfless, generous, patient, forgiving, lasting, personal, overwhelming, liberating and non-possessive.  It is a love that accepts the person as he is and which reveals the person to himself, just as Jesus by His love and non-judgemental attitude towards the woman freed her from fear and enabled her to discover her true self and identity.  She felt so liberated that she could share her experience with her fellowmen.  “She said, ‘He told me all I have ever done.’”  The point is that no one can reveal us to ourselves only God alone!

However, Jesus does not only reveal to us the truth about ourselves.  He has come to reveal to us the Father’s love for us.  What is this love all about?  It is a love that resulted in the emptying of the Father’s love for us by giving us His Son freely and without conditions.  God in Christ died for us whilst we were still sinners.  There were no conditions for Him to die for us.  Jesus died for us precisely so that we will never doubt the love of God for us and His mercy and forgiveness for all time, yesterday, today and forever.  He knows that we are weak and powerless to overcome sin.

So what is required to receive and experience this love and mercy of God so that we could say with the Samaritan woman that His love is true?  It is faith alone in Christ.  This is what St Paul said about justification by faith alone through grace. “Through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory.”  We cannot earn heaven because we are so weak when it comes to sin.  We are helpless and crippled in the face of temptation and sin.  Hence, we cannot but only cling to God’s forgiveness, compassion and understanding.

This faith is not pure blind faith without a reality. St Paul wrote, “This hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.”  Through the forgiveness of sins, brought about by faith, we receive the love of God poured into our hearts in the Holy Spirit.  Jesus comes to give us the living water, the Holy Spirit, the love of God, the love of His Father.  We do not need any bucket, unlike what the woman thought. The only bucket is the empty bucket of total receptivity of His love, mercy, forgiveness and grace.  If our buckets are empty, if our minds and hearts are receptive, then God’s love will be given to us without measure.  Christ who died for us freely and set us free will then allow us to experience God’s unconditional love and mercy.

Salvation is a free gift.  We need not work for it and we cannot work for it.  This is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples, “One sows, another reaps; I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for. Others worked for it; and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.”   Faith enables us to accept the reward and the crown that Jesus had already won for us.  We need not work for it because the battle is already won.  Our sins are already forgiven.  God has loved us and accepted us as His sons and daughters.  There is nothing else for us to do except to say, “Yes” to His love and His mercy.  This is all that is required.  Faith in the justification given to us in Christ!

But such faith does not end up just in believing in His unconditional love.  It means acting out that love in our lives.  We must not fall into the mistake of taking His love for granted.  The responsorial psalm warns us, “O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the desert when your fathers put me to the test; when they tried me, though they saw my work.’”  It would be tragic for us to test His love by continuing to sin and hurt ourselves, others and Christ Himself who gave up His life for us.  If we have experienced the love of Jesus, we must now respond by allowing His love to take root in our hearts so that this love is translated into a life of charity and obedience to the commandments. Hence, Jesus told His disciples “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.”

So the true meaning of faith is to do the will of God, accepting our sufferings and crosses of daily life and doing everything for the love of God and our fellowmen.  Only such a motivation can free us from the boredom, routine and drudgery of the daily struggles of the woman drawing water each day at the well.  By filling all that we do with the love of God, we find our true identity, which is to share in the life and love of God.  We need never draw water again from our own wells that often run dry.  The consequence of this relationship is total freedom and fulfillment.  Like the townsfolk, we too can testify from our hearts, “Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the saviour of the world.”

WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV MSGR WILLIAM GOH