There was a well…
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, and Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and 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.” (Jn 4:5-10)
The Samaritan woman was accustomed to being sidelined. A woman in a masculine world, belonging to a “non-people,” she goes to draw water by herself at an improbable hour–a sign of her loneliness, perhaps of her contempt for a way of life barely tolerated by society.
Jesus is waiting for her at the well, the place of daily toil, to tell her that she is loved and has always been awaited. The well becomes a symbol of his side, which, pierced by a lance, pours out the living water that quenches everyone’s thirst for love.
A mountain for me too
Wait for me, Lord, in the places where I toil every day.
Wait for me in the places where I allow my dignity to be wounded.
Wait for me when I cry.
Wait for me when no one is waiting for me.
Open your pierced side to me
and from this wellspring of mercy
pour into me your infinite love:
the water that quenches my thirst for love.
Amen.
Taken from the book Il Vangelo si fa strada by Roberta Vinerba, FSP Editions 2019
