Despite all the miracles that God worked for them, the Israelites never changed their attitudes. They complained and grumbled while in slavery in Egypt, and they complained against God and Moses when they saw the Egyptians pursuing them after their departure. Even after they had crossed the Red Sea, they complained and grumbled when they had no food. They did so too when they were disgusted with the miraculous manna, when they did not have meat to eat, and when they were thirsty.
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?” (Ex. 17:3)
It is obvious that God’s blessings alone do not change their attitudes nor their hearts. They enjoyed His gifts but were never transformed—they needed something more.
The Samaritan woman in the fourth chapter of St. John’s Gospel had only one, privileged encounter with Jesus, yet she was completely transformed from a shy, sinful, ashamed, and confused woman into a zealous, courageous disciple who brought others to Jesus. These are four things that brought about her transformation:
1. Personal Encounter with Christ
Through this personal encounter with Jesus, she was brought into communion with the Triune God. She experienced “peace with God though Jesus Christ,” and she “gained access by faith to His grace.” She experienced that hope “that does not disappoint” because “the love of God has been poured into her heart through the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:1-8).
We too must seek this personal encounter with Christ if we are ever going to be transformed in mind and heart. Transformation is the work of God’s Spirit in Jesus Christ. We only need to dispose ourselves to receive divine love and cooperate with divine grace through daily personal prayer, a fervent sacramental life, and encountering Jesus in those we love and serve.
2. Receiving What the Lord Offered
She did not shy away from the challenging words that Jesus spoke to her, like when He asked her to go and call her husband. She accepted that God be worshipped “in spirit and in truth.” She humbly accepted Jesus’ soft rebuke of her fellow Samaritans, “You people worship what you do not know.” And she accepted the consoling words of Jesus, “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.”
We too must receive everything that Jesus offers us. We must be ready to accept the truth that He reveals about ourselves, our attitudes, His love and will for us, His demands in our lives, our areas of sin, etc. We must accept the challenging and uncomfortable things that come our way in life, because they are a means of divine transformation. God cannot transform us when we pick and choose what we will accept and reject from Him. If we accept all with loving trust, He will transform us, “For those who love God all things work for good” (Rom. 8:28).
3. Complete Honesty with Him
The Samaritan woman spoke to Jesus of her desires, frustrations, confusion, and even her sinfulness. She did not lie when Jesus asked her to go bring her husband. She humbly admitted that she had no husband, eliciting a word of admiration and praise from Jesus, “You have answered rightly.”
We cannot be transformed by Jesus when we are not honest with Him. Our encounters with Jesus are fruitless when we try to hide things from Him or pretend to be something that we are not. We too must reveal the truth about our sins, failures, desires, inner wounds, resentments, insecurities, addictions, fears, and hopes.
4. Bringing Others to Jesus
The woman abandoned her water there at the well, the same jar that she had held onto so tightly before, and she went to call her neighbors to come and experience what she had just experienced in her encounter with Jesus: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have done. Could He possibly be the Christ?” Because of her humble and honest testimony, we are told that “many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Him because of the word of the woman.”
We dispose ourselves for transformation when we are also ready to live for Jesus and to testify to Him by our words and deeds. We want to bring souls to Christ by our prayers and sacrifices, as Jesus requested, “Whoever does not gather with me, scatters” (Mt. 12:30). The more that we gather souls to Jesus, and not to ourselves, the more that we experience inner transformation.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lenten season is a time for us to go deeper into our spiritual transformation towards Jesus. We see so much wickedness, evil, scandals, and injustices in our world today because we enjoy God’s gifts without allowing Him to also transform our hearts. We hold onto attitudes that are completely opposed to Jesus’, all while begging God to continue blessing us with His gifts.
God’s greatest gift to us is that of His Son, for “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that those who believe in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). The goal of this divine gift is that we become like Christ, for God has called us to be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29).
Jesus has come to make us like Himself through His many gifts. That is why He never ceases to offer Himself as a gift to us in each Eucharist, the greatest gift of all. He comes to us so that we can encounter Him in any place and time and be transformed by His love. So let us always seek to encounter Him personally, receive all that He offers to us, be completely honest with Him, and resolve to live for Him and share Him with others. This is how He transforms us, so that we begin to think, feel, desire, and act just like Jesus.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
