VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Jesus seeks out people in their woundedness and isolation to offer healing and hope, even when they feel furthest from God, Pope Francis said in a prepared catechesis.
“Jesus awaits us and lets himself be found precisely when we think there is no longer hope for us,” the pope wrote in the text prepared for his general audience March 26.
Although Pope Francis returned to his residence at the Vatican March 23 after more than five weeks in the hospital, his general audience and other appointments were suspended to allow time for his recovery.
Jubilee pilgrims, even knowing Pope Francis was not holding an audience, continued to make their way to the Vatican and to the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica.
As part of his catechetical series for the Holy Year 2025, themed “Jesus Christ, our hope,” the pope reflected on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well as recounted in St. John’s Gospel. The catechesis follows a previous reflection on the nighttime meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus.
Unlike Nicodemus, who went looking for Jesus, the Samaritan woman encountered him unexpectedly. She went to the well at an unusual hour — noon, when it was very hot — perhaps to avoid others. “She did not expect to find a man at the well at noon; in fact, she hoped to find no one at all,” the text said. Yet Jesus chose to pass through Samaria and stop at that very place and time, waiting for her.
“Jesus here thirsts above all for the salvation of that woman,” the catechesis said, explaining that Jesus’ request — “Give me a drink” — reveals a divine desire to begin a relationship and offer the “living water” of grace.
Quoting St. Augustine, the pope wrote, “The one who asked for a drink was thirsting for the faith of the woman.”
Jesus’ knowledge of her difficult past of having had five husbands and now living with a sixth man is not a source of judgment, the pope’s message said, but a starting point for healing. The woman is invited to read her story in a new light.
The number six, the catechesis noted, often symbolizes imperfection in the Bible. Jesus could be “an allusion to the seventh bridegroom, the one who will finally be able to satiate this woman’s desire to be truly loved,” it said. “And that bridegroom can only be Jesus.”
Upon realizing who he is, the woman leaves behind her water jar — a symbol, the pope wrote, of her past burdens — and runs to tell others.
“Her past is no longer a weight,” the catechesis said. “She is reconciled. And so it is for us: To proclaim the Gospel, we must first lay the weight of our own story at the feet of the Lord, surrendering to him the weight of our past.”
True evangelization flows from the experience of being understood, welcomed and forgiven, the pope wrote.
“Even if our stories seem heavy, complicated, perhaps even ruined, we always have the chance to surrender them to God and begin our journey again,” the catechesis said. “God is mercy and always awaits us.”
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