The Lector Ministry will organize the next Lector Training on 21 April (Sunday) from 2pm to 3.30 pm at the Parish Hall. This training is a great learning and sharing opportunity for our new lectors and refresher for existing lectors. All lectors are cordially invited and encouraged to attend. Please join us to proclaim the Word of the Lord. Please email Brenda Yu at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for registration and if you need more information.

St. Anne's Church Outing Day: St. Anne's is organizing a tour on May 1st (Wednesday, Labor Day holiday). The itinerary includes a pilgrimage to the St. Joseph's Chapel in Yim Tin Tsai, Sai Kung, ferry rides, transportation, lunch, and activities. The cost is $240 for adults, $160 for helpers, $120 for children (aged 5-12), and free for children under five years old. Tickets will be sold at the church entrance every Sunday from April 7th to 21st inclusive. Limited seats available, first-come, first-served basis. For more details, please refer to the notice board.

 We Need Jesus to Be Our Advocate

My dear brothers and sisters, the lesson of the third Sunday of Easter I took from the second reading of today reading. St John said: "My children I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one." Before I explain why we need an advocate, I will talk first about St. John who wrote this letter.

When St John wrote his First Letter, he was an old man. Of the twelve Apostles, he had been the youngest. Most biblical scholars estimate that he was about 16 years old when he met Jesus. And he didn't die until he was over 100 years old, after the year 100 AD.

At the end of the Creed of the Apostles the Church proclaims 'I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.' This formula contains in brief the fundamental elements of the Church's hope about the last things.

The Church has frequently proclaimed her faith in the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. It forms, as it were, the "continuation" of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of many brethren (Rom 8:29), extended to all men and women, living and dead, just and sinners, that will take place when He comes at the end of time. At death the soul is separated from the body; with the resurrection, body and soul are reunited again for ever (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 997). The dogma of the resurrection of the dead refers to the fullness of immortality to which mankind is destined, but at the same time it is a vivid reminder of our dignity, and in particular of the dignity of the body. It speaks to us of the goodness of the world, of the body, of the value of a life lived out day by day, of the eternal vocation of matter. That is why in the second century when writing against the Gnostics, the phrase resurrection "of the flesh" was used—that is to say, human life in its most material aspect, temporal, changeable, apparently fleeting.

St Thomas Aquinas considered the doctrine of the resurrection to be natural in respect to its final cause (because the soul is made to be united to the body and vice versa), but supernatural in respect to its efficient cause (that is, God). [1]

The risen body will be real and material, but not earthly or mortal. St Paul rejected the idea of resurrection as a transformation happening within human history, and spoke of the resurrected body as "glorious" (cf. Phil 3:21) and "spiritual" (cf. Col 15:44). The resurrection of every man and woman, as happened with Christ, will take place after death.

The Church in the name of Christian faith does not promise us a successful life on this earth. She does not talk of a "utopia," since our earthly life will always be marked by the Cross. However, through the reception of Baptism and the Eucharist, the process of resurrection has is some way already begun (cf. CCC, 1000). According to St Thomas, at the resurrection the soul will inform the body so deeply that it will reflect the soul's moral and spiritual qualities. [2] Thus the final resurrection, which will take place when Christ comes in glory, will make possible the definitive judgement of the living and the dead.

With respect to the doctrine of the resurrection three points can be made:

—the veneration of relics of the saints is a clear manifestation of the Church's faith in the resurrection of the body;

—although cremation of the human body is not illicit, unless it has been chosen for reasons that go against faith (cf. CCC, 1176), the Church strongly advises maintaining the pious custom of burying the dead. "The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in the faith and hope of the resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy: it honours the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit." (CCC, 2300);

— the resurrection of the dead accords with what Holy Scripture calls the coming of "the new heavens and the new earth" (cf. CCC, 1042; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1) Not only will mankind attain glory, but the entire cosmos in which we live and move will be transformed. "The Church to which all have been called in Christ Jesus and in which, by the grace of God, we achieve sanctity," we read in Lumen Gentium (no. 48), "will not achieve its full perfection until 'the time comes for the restoration of all things' (Acts 3:21), and when along with human kind the whole universe, so intimately united with man and through him achieving its end, will be perfectly renewed." There will certainly be continuity between this world and the new world, but also an important discontinuity. The hope of the definitive installation of Christ's kingdom shouldn't weaken but rather strengthen, with the theological virtue of hope, our effort to achieve progress on earth (CCC 1049).

Footnotes:

[1] Cf. St Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles , IV,81

[2] Cf. St Thomas, Summa Theologiae , III. Suppl., qq 78-86

https://opusdei.org/en/article/topic-16-i-believe-in-the-resurrection-of-the-body-and-life-everlasting/

The world is not just something "out there"; a spirit of worldliness often tests us. As much as the world tries to claim otherwise, the teachings of Our Lord bring peace to a troubled world and troubled consciences.

This process is not easy. Saint John insists that Our Lord did not just have to pass through water, but blood as well. He was baptized, but he also had to take up his cross and struggle all the way to Calvary. So do we. Saint John also reminds us that the Holy Spirit helps us identify and check the worldliness that always tries to afflict us.

The Risen Lord shows his wounds today in the Gospels to the disciples and says, "Peace be with you." They'd all abandoned him when he needed them. Showing those wounds could have been to shame them, but Jesus wanted to communicate a message of mercy, not condemnation.

Sometimes we forget that we've been forgiven. Jesus in showing his wounds today says, in a sense, "what happened, happened, but be at peace; I forgive you." Every sin we commit wounds Our Lord, and if we don't realize that, obviously we're not going to be asking mercy from anyone, and not showing much mercy when others hurt us.

Conversion means realizing we've gone off-track and hurt people along the way, including the people we love. Our Lord is always waiting for us to turn back to him and accept his peace to get back on track. In every sacrament of Confession, we acknowledge that we've hurt Christ and hurt others: we recognize the wounds we've inflicted and Christ tells us to be at peace because all is forgiven.

Our Lord gives the Apostles a special gift of the Holy Spirit today to become his ministers of peace, reconciliation, and communion. It's the Risen Lord who makes this possible. If Our Lord were merely dead and gone or ascended straight away without appearing to his disciples, we'd never truly know if he'd have forgiven us. He returned, Risen, and his first words were words of peace and a desire to share that peace with others. He sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins, forgiveness that brings peace. 

The Divine Mercy Devotion

Devotion to the Divine Mercy involves a total commitment to God as Mercy. It is a decision to trust completely in him, to accept his mercy with thanksgiving, and to be merciful as he is merciful. The devotional practices proposed in the diary of Saint Faustina and set forth in here are completely in accordance with the teachings of the Church and are firmly rooted in the Gospel message of our Merciful Saviour. Properly understood and implemented, they will help us grow as genuine followers of Christ.

The Divine Mercy Message:

The message of mercy is that God loves us "all of us" no matter how great our sins. He wants us to recognise that his mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon him with trust, receive his mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share his joy. It is a message we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC.

A. Ask for his Mercy. God wants us to approach him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking him to pour his mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.

B. Be merciful. God wants us to receive his mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as he does to us.

C. Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know the graces of his mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.

Dear St. Anne's Parishioners, on behalf of St. Anne's Parish, I wish you and your family a

Happy Easter 2024

This is the day which was made by the Lord: let us rejoice and be glad, Alleluia.

Fr. Paulus Waris SANTOSO, O.Carm
Parish Priest 

My dear brothers and sisters, on the first day of the week, the third day of his Passion, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Today is his day. Happy Easter. Many great historical figures have led exemplary lives, taught wise doctrines, and even died for the truth. But only one has risen again.

The Crucifix Reveals the Heart of God

My dear brothers and sisters, in today's Gospel there are some Greek-speaking visitors who had come to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to celebrate the Passover, the most important Jewish holy day. And when they hear about Jesus, they give us one of the most beautiful prayers in the whole Bible. So simple, and so powerful. They come up to St Philip and say, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus."

Jesus' response to this request is kind of confusing. Instead of just saying, "OK, show them in," he gives a long explanation of "his hour," his coming sacrifice on the cross.

At first glance, this seems like a denial. But his last statement shows that actually, he is granting their request. "And when I am lifted up from the earth," he explains, "I will draw everyone to myself."

By his crucifixion, Jesus reveals himself to everyone, including these Greek visitors included.Christ wants everyone to find him, to see him, to learn to know and love him - that's why he became man in the first place. And so he allows himself to be crucified, which showing us both his outer self, and his inner self.

The crucifixion exposes his heart for all to see - a heart blazing with so much love that it is willing to die for our sake, to suffer unspeakable pain and humiliation in order to reopen to us the gates of heaven. The crucifix is the great revelation of the heart of God.

If we want to "see Christ," to see and know God, we have only to raise our eyes to behold him dying on the cross to give us true life. There Christ is most attractive to us - and we should always remember that we are no less attractive to him when we bend under the weight of our own cross and weakness.

St Marguerite Bourgeoys Saves the Day

God also reveals this dynamic, energetic love through his saints. In fact, every one of us is called to be a mirror of God's goodness and God's love. When we live that calling faithfully, we become saints. Sometimes we think that saints are pious and passive - but since God's love is dynamic, authentic saints are also dynamic.

St Marguerite Bourgeoys is a good example of this. She was born in France in 1630, but her heart to serve God and his people brought her to the newfound French colony of Montreal, Canada in 1652.

She came in response to an invitation issued by the colony's governor, who was looking for teachers. She came to the rough settlement and immediately began her work of teaching and training young colonial and Native American girls.

Soon she saw that the progress of the settlement depended on a morally sound and capable class of women who could form and maintain solid home lives. So, she returned to France to gather some fellow workers, and then expanded her efforts back in Montreal by starting a new kind of religious order. And that's where she reflected so brilliantly the passionate, tireless, dynamic love of the heart of the crucified Christ.

At that time, religious congregations of women were all cloistered. But St Marguerite recognized that the specific characteristics of colonial life needed the help of sisters who were allowed to work outside the convent: promoting Christian charity, education, and everything else a new settlement required.

She insisted on moving forward with this radical new vision, even though it entailed an endless round of arguments and discussions to win official approval from civil and Church authorities. She spent her whole lifetime pioneering this new form of religious consecration against all odds - because that's the kind of thing true, Christ-like love does.

Giving His Heart a Chance to Show Its Love

We only have a couple more weeks of Lent. Nothing would please the heart of Christ more than if we made a real effort to spend more time with him in prayer during these weeks, to give him a chance to show us how much he loves us.

True prayer is much more than just saying prayers. It is a heart-to-heart conversation with God, with the God who loves us so much that even while we were still sinners, he climbed up onto a cross and suffered in his own body and soul the consequences and penalty of our sins.

There are special graces in the air during Lent, but we will miss them unless we take time to sit close to the Lord and talk with him. We are all busy, and it may not be easy to make time to spend in prayer.

God understands that. But if we try, I am sure we can find ways. Maybe it is just a matter of saying an extra decade of the Rosary while you're driving to the store or to work.

Maybe it's just a matter of going to bed fifteen minutes earlier than usual, so that you can get up fifteen minutes earlier and spend that time reading a chapter of the Bible or of a good spiritual book and speaking to the Lord about what you read.

Maybe it could be skipping your favorite TV show or Drama series for the next two or three weeks and coming to the parish to do a Holy Hour (or a Holy Half-Hour) in front of the Eucharist instead - praying for yourself and for all your loved ones.

God will never let himself be outdone in generosity. If we give him a bit more time, he will shower us with a lot more grace - that's just how he is: his heart never gets tired of giving. We just need to give his heart a chance. As he comes to us again in this Holy Mass, let's promise him that we will. 

During Lent, the Church asks us to prepare for Christ's passion and resurrection by making small sacrifices, traditionally in the form of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But why do we sacrifice? What is a sacrifice, anyway?

St. Thomas Aquinas observes that "sacrifice" comes from the Latin word: Sacrificium.Sacrificium comes from sacer (holy) and facere (do or make). A sacrifice is a making-holy. Not only that, but St. Thomas' discussion of sacrifice reveals so much about our nature and our relationship to God. He describes a sacrifice as a bodily act of offering to God a gift that is broken or transformed so that we might return to God.

A bodily act

Sacrifice is fundamentally a religious act of offering a gift to God. But isn't this a bit strange? If God is all spirit, how could he possibly need our physical offerings?

St. Thomas explains that our physical offerings are not really for God's benefit, but for us. As a unity of body and soul, the human person experiences reality through the physical senses. Even God presents himself to us through the sensible things of creation. It is fitting, then, that we present ourselves to God through sensible things as well. Think of the Sacraments: all are visible signs of invisible grace. Lenten fasting and sacrifices are tiny sacramental signs of the true gift we give God: ourselves, body, and soul.

A gift is broken or transformed

However, a sacrifice is not just any gift. St. Thomas explains that an offering only becomes a sacrifice when it is changed: the goat is slaughtered, the bread is broken, and the grain is consumed by fire. In being transformed, the offering is set apart and made holy. Christ himself, the consummate sacrifice, was mutilated, pierced, and subjected to death.

But for these to be real sacrifices, something must be broken and transformed. Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving break little cracks in the brittle illusion of our self-sufficiency. They invite us to acknowledge our brokenness, susceptible as we all are to the corrupting effects of sin. And they invite God's grace to transform us and make us holy. "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17).

Return to God

Why, then, do we sacrifice? We do it to return to God, and this return happens in two distinct ways. First, through sacrifice, we "return to God" in the sense of giving back what we owe him. Of course, we can't possibly repay God for his gifts with an equal return—he is the source of our very existence! We owe him everything. Nevertheless, we can do our part: our small personal sacrifices signify our return to God. And thankfully, Christ lovingly repaid our dues in full through his perfect self-sacrifice, which we too can offer to God every time we participate in the Mass.

Second, through sacrifice, we "return to God" in the sense of turning back towards him over and over again. Like the Israelites, we are constantly turning away from God and towards sin. As God called Israel to repentance through the prophets, he still calls us: "Return to me with all your heart" (Joel 2:12).

Lenten practices help us shed bad habits and self-love. St. Thomas says these religious acts purify us to orient ourselves more single-mindedly toward God. When we respond thus to the divine call—when we offer ourselves up, body and soul, to be broken and transformed by his merciful love—we are made holy. 

The Meaning of the Love of God

My dear brother and sisters in Christ. In today's first reading we heard that God allow the ancient Jews to return to Jerusalem after their exile. Why did God allow that happened?

They were the ones who had been unfaithful to his friendship. They had started worshipping other gods, breaking the commandments, and disobeying God's prophets. They "mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets."

That's ungrateful. And because of their sin, they suffered the consequences - they were conquered and exiled by the Babylonians; sin always does damage, both to us and to those around us. And while they were in exile, many of them completely forgot about God and his promises - as today's Psalm implies.

But even in the face of this colossal ingratitude, God still didn't give up on them. He sent them more prophets to give them hope. He promised to restore them. And when the time was right, he did restore them. He brought his unworthy people back to Jerusalem and allowed them to rebuild the Temple, a sign of lasting peace and prosperity.

Why? Why would he be so unreasonable? Because God's love, God's fidelity, God's mercy doesn't depend on our worthiness. He doesn't love us because we are perfect; he perfects us because he loves us.

This is the Good News of today's Gospel: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." St Paul gets even more explicit in today's Second Reading.

He points out that our salvation is a "grace" - the Greek word refers to a lovely gift, not something we earn or deserve. He writes: "God ... because of the great love he had for us ... even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ." We are too used to this word, "love." Today, let's refresh our appreciation for what it really means.

The First Two Loves: Natural Affection and Eros

The New Testament was written in Greek, not English. And Greek has at least four different words for the single English word "love." They all imply some kind of bond, connection, attraction, and appreciation between someone who loves and something or someone that is loved, but each one has a different shade of meaning.

The first and most basic word for love in ancient Greek is "storge" [STORE-gay]. It means natural affection, the bond that we feel because of some natural connection.

This affection can be sweet and superficial, as in the affection we feel for a favourite ice cream or for a favourite pet. Or it can go very deep, as in the bond we feel naturally with members of our family. Even when siblings, for example, are estranged from each other for many years, there is still a unique bond between them, a natural connection or affection. This type of natural affection doesn't really come up very much in the Bible.

The second Ancient Greek word for love is "eros" [AIR-ohss]. This is the kind of love we talk about when we say that someone has "fallen in love." This is the kind of passionate feeling that carries us away and fills us with intense and seemingly uncontrollable emotions. It can refer to the passion that leads two people to become romantically involved. Or it can refer to the passion that artists feel for their art or even that diehard sportsmen feel for their sport.

The common denominator here is that the passionate feeling tends to carry us away, even leading us to become unreasonable and imprudent. It doesn't have to, but in a fallen world it tends to. We need God's grace to help us channel and govern these passions in a fruitful, beautiful way. This word only appears twice in the Bible, both times in the Old Testament.

Love #3 - Friendship

The third ancient Greek word for love is "philia" [FEEL-ee-yuh]. This word was used to describe a bond formed when two people share a common interest or ideal. It was used most often to refer to friendship.

Instead of being based on instinctual affection or passionate intoxication, it was based on a conscious awareness and decision to share one's interests with another person. The key characteristic here is that the two friends who share this kind of love are equals.

"Philia" was not usually used to describe the relationship between a father and son, for example, or between a master and a beloved slave - they were not equals. This word does appear in the New Testament. It is used when Jesus says to his disciples at the Last Supper: "I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" (John 15:15).

God's grace not only forgives our sins, but it elevates us; it makes us like him. Imagine if we could give our favorite pet the ability to talk, laugh, and interact with us on a human level.

Well, God has done that with us. Dog nature is inferior to human nature, and human nature is inferior to divine nature. But God in his goodness and through his grace has elevated our human nature and made us partakers in the divine nature. We are friends of Christ.

And so, the infused theological virtues (faith, hope, and love), when we develop them, enable us to see ourselves, the world, and others as Christ does, to think of them as he does.

Love #4: Self-forgetfulness

The fourth word for love in ancient Greek is used far more frequently in the Bible than all the others combined. It is "agape" [ah-GAH-pay], sometimes translated as "charity." Perhaps a better translation is "Christ-like love," since he revealed its meaning to us by his life, death, and resurrection. This is the word used in today's Readings: "God so loved the world... because of the great love he had for us." This is also the word used when Jesus gives his New Commandment at the Last Supper: "love one another as I have loved you."

What is the core meaning of Self-forgetfulness? This is the love that focuses on doing good to others, serving them, helping them in their needs, regardless of how I feel about them or what I might get in return.

This is generous love, sacrificial love, self-giving love. This is the love of Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem, in the desert, and on the cross.... pouring out his life not because doing so filled him with ecstasy, but because we needed him to do it, because he wanted to restore hope to our sinful hearts and lead us back from our sinful exile into the Father's house.

When St John in his First Letter writes, "God is love," this is the word he uses. God is completely self-forgetful, completely focused on our good, happiness, and fulfillment. That's why he created us: not for his happiness, but for ours.

That's why he forgives us as often as we need to be forgiven. That's why he feeds us with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. That's why he carries our crosses with us, never leaving us to suffer alone. And since we were created in God's image, this God who is love, we will find the fulfillment we yearn for as we gradually learn to love in this same self-forgetful, Christ-like way.

Conclusion: Spreading the Sunrise

God's love for each of us is personal, active, unconditional and unlimited, and the crucifix proves it. And today the Church is reminding us of that. After three weeks of Lenten penance, when we have been reminded of our sins and selfishness (the bad news), it is time to remember that it is precisely because of those sins and selfishness that Christ came to earth to save us (the Good News).

That's the reason this Sunday is called "Laetare Sunday," the Sunday of Rejoicing ["Laetare" is the first word of the entrance antiphon in Latin]. That's the reason we wear rose-coloured vestments today. Just as the horizon begins to brighten and turn a pale pink as the sun starts to rise after a long, dark night, so the love of God in Christ pierces the darkness of sin and sends the shadows of evil fleeing the bright light of eternal day.

Today as Christ renews his unconditional love for us in this holy Mass, and especially as we receive him in Holy Communion, let's thank him for these gifts. And let's ask him for the grace not only to experience his love, but to share that experience with others, especially those who are still living in darkness.

This week, may our active, Christ-like love be like a sunrise in their hearts, giving them hope and drawing them towards the saving fountain God's grace. 

I think this is a good time to start trying to understand the paradox of the cross: It is beyond human understanding, yet contains a divine purpose and profound supernatural love. Through Jesus' death on the cross, he has saved us from a similarly horrible death.

The Crucifixion is a horror method of execution. It was specifically designed to intensify and prolong agony, but to be the ultimate insult to personal dignity, the last word in humiliating and dehumanizing treatment."

And yet, for love of us, Jesus chose to suffer this unimaginably painful, degrading death, because "no other mode of execution would have been commensurate with the extremity of humanity's condition under Sin."

To understand why Christ's passion and death on the cross were necessary for our salvation, we have to understand the idea of sacrifice and atonement in the Old Testament. According to the old Mosaic covenant, priests would offer animal sacrifices to God for the sins of the people, substituting the death of the animal for the death punishment deserved by the people for their sins and disobedience. This "substitution" brought an individual or a community back into a right relationship with God.

The Letter to the Hebrews shows how Christ took the place of the Mosaic priestly sacrifices once and for all. Just as in the Old Covenant the high priest would offer animal sacrifices on behalf of the people, so Christ became the new high priest who offered himself as the sacrificial offering for the sins of the people for all time. While the Old Covenant required ongoing sacrifices, Jesus' was once and for all, never to be repeated: "he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:12)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that "Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan." (CCC 599) This is where the sense of paradox comes in: How could a loving and merciful God condemn his Son to such a fate? The only answer is love. God took the initiative to offer his Son on the cross in order to do something we could never do: save ourselves. Jesus took the punishment we deserved and became the instrument of atonement for our guilt to the Father. We are forgiven because of his suffering and death. This is why, for Catholics, the crucifix, in all its brutality, is the most powerful image of God's love and concern for each of us. 

Satiating our true thirst

My dear brothers and sisters, for the Third Sunday of Lent we pause briefly on our pilgrimage toward Jerusalem in order to contemplate Our Lord's encounter with the Samaritan Woman. It's a good opportunity to recall our own encounters with the Lord. Ultimately, we are thirsting for God and his love, and Lent is a time to return to the well in order to satisfy that thirst again, accepting no substitutes.

In today's First Reading the Israelites are thirsty and fed up. They rebel against Moses, who is afraid they'll kill him, and almost rebel against the Lord. They question whether God is even there. That shows the thirst they really have: for God. His presence, his attention, his aid.

They don't perceive his presence, just their need, and their hearts have become hardened by their experiences and frustration. Sometimes we thirst for something more, but we seek to slake our thirst in the wrong way. That is a recipe for dissatisfaction and a hardened heart.

St. Paul in today's Second Reading reminds us that our true thirst goes beyond just seeking the fulfillment of material needs. The Holy Spirit pours God's love into our hearts. It is God's love that satisfies our true thirst. When we're filled with his love and his grace, we're at peace. No grumbling.

Everyone thirsts for love, but not everyone realizes that the love for which they thirst is the love of God. Yet, if there is an issue the problem is us, not him: Our Lord offered his love for us even when he had no idea or desire for his love, while we were still "enemies" due to sin.

In today's Gospel the Samaritan woman epitomizes someone who was looking for love in all the wrong places. Yet love came to meet her unexpectedly. The Samaritan woman knew the religious traditions of her people, so she had an idea of the importance of God in her life, yet something had not clicked. She knew her religion, but she also experienced rebellion in her heart against God's will regarding marriage, which is why she starts to give Our Lord some attitude. Where does this Jew, and a Jewish man no less, get off talking to her and asking for a drink?

Today's Psalm reminds us that if today we hear the voice of the Lord we must not harden our hearts like the Israelites did. The Samaritan woman's experiences have hardened her.

In today's Gospel we see two thirsts seeking each other out. Each one seeks the other in order to satisfy its thirst. The Lord has a great thirst for our faith and our love. The Samaritan woman has a thirst for real love.

Our Lord today knows he is dealing with a hardened heart frustrated after a long time looking for love in all the wrong places. Therefore, he knows when to be tactful, addressing her true thirst, but also blunt, telling her the mistaken ways she tried to slake her thirst.

He comes to meet her at her level. The Lord often avoids the Messianic titles of his time because his contemporaries see the Messiah as someone simply social and political, but when the Samaritan woman asks him if he is the Messiah, he responds without hesitation: "I am he, the one speaking with you." The Samaritan woman has found that for which she was truly thirsting and has to share the news.

Sometimes you just need water

Society at large has insisted a lot on being sure to drink lots of water daily for good health. Many people tote a bottle with them now wherever they go. In the past, it was because people had no better option. Today people have so many beverages—sodas, coffees, teas, juices—that they neglect something as essential and vital as water.

Many individuals in the world today don't have a reliable source of water. Water is vital to life. Eliminate a community's water supply, and you eliminate that community.

Meditate on the Samaritan Woman

In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: "It is impossible to give a brief explanation of the wealth of this Gospel passage. One must read and meditate on it personally, identifying oneself with that woman who, one day like so many other days, went to draw water from the well and found Jesus there, sitting next to it, 'tired from the journey' in the midday heat" (Angelus, 2/24/2008).

Through meditating on this passage you can open your heart so that the Holy Spirit can refill it with God's love: "like the Samaritan woman, let us also open our hearts to listen trustingly to God's Word in order to encounter Jesus who reveals his love to us and tells us: 'I who speak to you am he' (Jn 4: 26), the Messiah, your Savior" (Angelus, 2/24/2008).

Wells are not meant to be used just once. Like the kitchen faucet, we go to them over and over, because our thirst for God is continuous in this life. If we neglect that thirst our spiritual life will shrivel up.

Pray for catechumens 

Today catechumens preparing to receive the sacraments at Easter are doing what's called the First Scrutiny. Catechumens are preparing to receive the sacraments of Christian Initiation, and the scrutinies are to "to uncover, then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out, then strengthen all that is upright, strong, and good". Each one has had an encounter with the Lord that is changing their life, which is why today's Gospel is so appropriate and useful for them. Throughout Lent, we pray for our catechumens. Let's also scrutinize our own Christian living as a way to teach them how Christians are truly meant to live. 

A woman came. She is a symbol of the Church not yet made righteous. Righteousness follows from the conversation. She came in ignorance, she found Christ, and he enters into conversation with her. Let us see what it is about, let us see why a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Samaritans did not form part of the Jewish people: they were foreigners. The fact that she came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race from the Jews.

We must then recognise ourselves in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach us what was to come. She came then to draw water. She had simply come to draw water; in the normal way of man or woman.Jesus says to her: Give me water to drink. For his disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore says to him: How is it that you, though a Jew, ask me for water to drink, though I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.

The Samaritans were foreigners; Jews never used their utensils. The woman was carrying a pail for drawing water. She was astonished that a Jew should ask her for a drink of water, a thing that Jews would not do. But the one who was asking for a drink of water was thirsting for her faith. Listen now and learn who it is that asks for a drink. Jesus answered her and said: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," perhaps you might have asked him and he would have given you living water.

He asks for a drink, and he promises a drink. He is in need, as one hoping to receive, yet he is rich, as one about to satisfy the thirst of others. He says: If you knew the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But he is still using veiled language as he speaks to the woman and gradually enters into her heart. Or is he already teaching her? What could be more gentle and kind than the encouragement he gave? If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," perhaps you might ask and he would give you living water.

What is this water that he will give if not the water spoken of in Scripture: With you is the fountain of life? How can those feel thirst who will drink deeply from the abundance in your house?

He was promising the Holy Spirit in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp his meaning, what was her reply? The woman says to him: Master, give me this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water. Her need forced her to this labour, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could hear those words: Come to me, all who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labours might be at an end; but she was not yet able to understand. 

Lent is the penitential season in the Church's liturgical year; it begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the celebration of the Paschal Mystery (Easter Triduum). During Lent, the Church reflects the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert in fasting and prayer (CCC 540, 1095, 1438). So on this occasion we learn from Saint Teresa of Avila how we pray.

At the beginning of her reform of the Carmelites, St Teresa of Jesus was asked by the nuns of her first foundation – the monastery St Joseph in Avila – to teach them how to pray. In her response, she chose the spirit of Lent as her guide; she chose the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6. Her answer to the cloistered nun's request was The Way of Perfection, her first book of teachings. In it, she presents her meditations on the Our Father, the prayer of the Lord – the core of chapter 6 of the Gospel of Matthew.

At the beginning of her book (Ch. 4) St Teresa lays out the proper foundations for a life of prayer: "I shall enlarge on only three things, which are from our constitutions, for it is very important that we understand how much these three things help us to possess inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us.

"The first of these is love of one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all others" (W4, 4).

St. Teresa's connection to the spirituality of Lent is now clear: love of one another relates to alms giving; detachment points to fasting; and, the essence of prayer is rooted in humility. This is Teresa's masterful insight to a life of prayer for her nuns and to all of us today.

Humility is a relational word that acknowledges that God is the creator and man is indeed the creature. The virtue of humility shows that God is the author of all Good and humanity recognizes their total dependence on God and on His goodness and mercy. In the words of the Church, humility avoids inordinate ambition of pride, reveals a contrite heart, and provides the foundation for turning to God in prayer (Cf. CCC 2559).

St. Teresa by highlighting humility solves the situation presented by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them" (Mt 6,1); piety to be seen by men is pride; and the antidote of pride is the virtue of humility, as Teresa rightly points out.

Therefore, to obtain the inner and outward peace that the Lord promises, St. Teresa's counsels, for a fulfilling life of prayer, is to be centered in humility – for it embraces fully both almsgiving and fasting; in her words, it embraces both love of neighbor and detachment of all things. Thus, immersed in the virtue of humility, our prayer life will flourish and the spirituality of Lent will always present in your life. 

The Cross Is Always Linked to the Resurrection

We are still at the beginning of Lent, this season of repentance and penitence, but today the Church is already talking to us about the Resurrection. In the transfiguration of Jesus in today's Gospel, Peter, James, and John get a glimpse of Christ's eternal glory, the glory he claimed fully after the resurrection.

St Paul, in today's Second Reading, writes passionately about God's power and faithfulness as revealed in Christ. And he changes his emphasis mid-sentence to take the spotlight off Christ's death on the cross and let it shine on his glorious resurrection. And in the passage about Abraham and Isaac, which narrates events that took place almost 2000 years before Christ, the release of Isaac from his bonds gives him new life - this too is a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

Even today's Psalm, when it speaks about walking with the Lord in the Land of the living and God "loosening the bonds" of his servant, is pointing our attention towards Christ's glorious resurrection. And yet, Easter is still more than a month away! What's going on here? It's very simple, really.

Lent is indeed meant to be a time of repentance and penitence, a time of sacrifice and reflection in which we acknowledge the weight of suffering in the world and in our lives, suffering that always has its roots in sin. This suffering is always part of the story of every human life, with or without Christ; but with Christ, it is not the end of the story. Crosses purify us of selfishness, if we allow them to, teaching us to lean more on Christ and to have a greater experience of his wisdom and joy - his resurrection.

In our Catholic faith, the cross and resurrection are two sides of the same coin; we must never allow ourselves to think of one without thinking of the others.

Running Marathons with Christ

Ryan Hall, the professional marathon runner who competed for the United States in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, understands this concept well. Ryan is a Christian, and his running career has always been linked to his faith. While in eighth grade and doing a 15-mile run in his hometown of Big Bear Lake, California, he suddenly felt a calling to compete in running at the highest levels: "I felt God had blessed me with this talent," he said in an interview years later. Since then, Ryan has been trying to glorify God by developing his running talent and bearing witness to his faith. His wild success in high school and college enabled him to launch a professional career.

While training for the Olympics, his daily schedule was like this: rise at 7am, eat breakfast, run 10 to 12 miles; eat lunch, have a massage or an ice bath to ease the muscles; take an afternoon nap to recover from the morning workout; run another five to six miles, go to the gym for strength and flexibility exercises; eat dinner, go to bed. That schedule is like most professional marathon runners. But on the night before a big race, Ryan's schedule breaks the mold. Instead of relaxing or listening to music, he watches Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, to get mentally prepared.

The example of Christ's suffering and resurrection helps him manage his pain during the race. He recalled being in agony in the final two miles of the London Marathon in April 2007, where his top performance shocked his competitors. His body was being stifled by a combination of 70-degree heat and a suffocating pace he had set earlier in the race. How was able to keep up his pace? Here's how he explained it: "I actually saw visions of the scarred body of Jesus, and it made me able to go on."

If we bear our crosses with Christ, we will also experience the power of Christ's resurrection - the two always go together.

Keeping the Balance of Christian Wisdom

A healthy, balanced Christian has to always keep these two things in view. By thinking of the resurrection, we find strength to carry our crosses. By not running away from our crosses, we make sure we're on the path to the resurrection. This is the Christian wisdom that keeps us joyful amid suffering, and reasonable amid success.

Two things can help us cultivate this wisdom during Lent. First, we should use the crucifix. It used to be common practice for Catholic families to have crucifixes on the walls of their houses, especially in their bedrooms and wherever the family would pray together. This practice has fallen off recently, but there's no reason we can't start it up again. We can also wear a crucifix necklace or pin or carry a holy card with an image of the crucifixion or put a picture of the suffering Christ on our cell phone screen. This helps us keep in mind what Christ suffered for our salvation. If we do that, the crosses that come our way will never surprise or derail us. We will learn to recognize more quickly God's hand in them.

And second, we should pray the Rosary. The Rosary is a simple prayer that gives us a tour of all the events of Christ's life, including his passion and resurrection. Even if we only pray one decade a day, which takes a few minutes, this tried-and-true prayer will help us avoid tunnel vision in our spiritual lives. In a few moments we will receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the marvellous fruit of his passion and resurrection. When we do, let's talk to him about our crosses and those of our loved ones, asking him to teach us to find hope in his resurrection even when we share in the pain of his passion.