Living This Week’s Gospel: 

John 4:5–42

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus and a Samaritan woman have a conversation that revolves around two kinds of nourishment-the physical and the spiritual.  When the woman speaks about water, she speaks about physical thirst and the practical applications of obtaining water, pointing out, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep.”

But when Jesus speaks about thirst, he speaks about spiritual nourishment that makes this physical thirst and the craving for things of this world irrelevant. The woman is surprised to hear him speak this way; after all, she was only thirsty and going to the well to draw water, and suddenly a stranger is speaking about “a spring of water welling up to eternal life!”

Imagine how surprised we would be if a stranger spoke to us like this on our way to the water cooler or coffee shop! Even so, the woman listens to him. She finds out that he is the Messiah!

In the very midst of satisfying our physical thirst for things of this world, do we listen when Jesus calls out to us and reminds us of the only true nourishment-that which we find in communion with him? How does God use our physical desires to lead us into communion with him?