Reflection on the Story of the Samaritan Woman in a penitential light

The Samaritan woman in today’s Gospel reading left her water pot behind, will we? Leaving behind her water pot the Samaritan woman was also leaving behind her failed attempts to satisfy a deeper yearning which had been veiled until her eye-opening encounter with Jesus. The very place where the Samaritan woman met Jesus is the same place she had been coming for years in order to quench her thirst, a thirst having a symbolism beyond the merely physical. Without knowing it the woman who left her water pot behind set forth to evangelize by bringing with her the message of her encounter with the Messiah. The people of the town to whom she went saw not only the truth of her words but they also saw the transformation that had taken place in her. The people of the town went out to meet Jesus where the woman had encountered Him. She had met him at the well; the well being symbolic of those things that cannot satisfy but by which we are drawn time and time again. It is in the midst of this well that the people of the town encounter Jesus. They encounter Jesus in their own sins and failures, symbolized in their need to keep coming back to the well.
At first the people of the town accept the woman’s words and the transformation that has occurred in her life as a cause for belief but then through their own personal encounter at the well with Jesus they are able to say that they no longer believe solely because of the woman’s words but because they too have been transformed by Christ who gives to all living water, a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
All the people then urged Jesus to stay with them and he did for two days. When Jesus left though it doesn’t say this in the story I believe that there was more than just the woman’s water pot left behind by the well.
This evening Jesus poses this question to each and every one of us including me: Do you need an appointment at the well? Let us this evening take advantage of the mercy of God and sit with Jesus by the well for if we do he will direct us on the right path and give us the strength to leave our own water pots behind.