Bishop Barron on The Woman at the Well

well about two weeks ago I had the great privilege of going to Rome to be part of a Jubilee celebration for priests as part of the year of mercy and so I addressed all the english-speaking priests who were there and they were from all over the world they're from States and Canada from England Ireland from Holland from Latvia from the Cameroon Ghana met priests from all over the place we gathered in this wonderful church of san andreas la vallee which is right in the heart of Rome and it was a great experience to be with these priests and to speak to them and what I chose as my text was the woman the well the great story from chapter 4 of the Gospel of John and I drew four of kind of insights out of that story about the Divine Mercy here's the first one the Divine Mercy is relentless it's very important thing now the Divine Mercy is after us I know I've said it a million times in different forums but the Bible is not the story of our quest for God our quest for God is just not that interesting it's true it's valid that's not that interesting what's really interesting is God's quite request for us God's after us God's mercy is coming after us how do you see it the story well Jesus going into Samaria right so he begins in Judea in the south he's going up to Galilee in the north most pious Jews would have gone around Samaria cuz it was unclean it was a land of the of the half-breeds right so pious Jews went around it Jesus goes into it that's the first thing he's he's after the marginalized the half-breeds the the the forgotten the all that he's after us he's going over the boundaries that we set more to it he's a Jew talking with Samaritan he's a man talking to a woman that was also unheard of in the public forum and then finally the woman who comes at noon and alone to fetch water that's weird because you wouldn't come at the hottest time of the day you come at the morning or the end of the day and you'd come with other people it was like a festive public event why is she coming at the worst time of the day and alone well we find out of course he's a public sinner Jesus doesn't care he crosses that boundary too and he reaches out to her there's the first thing we need to know I told the priest and this Pope Francis is all over the scene God's mercy is relentless go back to one of my spiritual heroes Thomas Merton you know we said the principal problem in religion is the Promethean problem all right so Prometheus in the great myth steals fire from the gods and the gods are angry and they have rest him and they punish him eternally because God and humanity on that reading Arrivals right we have to steal things from God because the God does want to give them to us that's not the Bible that's not the Bible God is no need of the world God's not trying to protect something from the world everything I have is yours right says the father of the of the older brother in the prodigal son story look pale everything me grabbing it from me you don't have to be my slave to get it everything I have is yours don't you get that yet that's the relentlessness of God's mercy which overcomes the Promethean problem okay well the second theme I drew out of the story is that divine mercy is given izing sometimes we think the divine mercy is merely a sanity by which I mean that it heals us of what's wrong with us you know it's it solves a problem sin which indeed it does but see there's more to it than that because the divine mercy wants to draw us into the dynamics of the divine life God wants to share his life with us go back to the prophet Isaiah who says something I think it's breathtaking anymore you think about your builder wants to marry you Isaiah says well your builder means God the one that's built you into existence and what's he want to do now let me get this straight it doesn't want to just you know dominate you or give you the law or have you obey Him or something which all the religions would say no no he wants to marry you we'll see what's marriage but it's the sort of necklace ultra metaphor for intimacy if you're a poet you're in your region what's the greatest kind of intimacy intellectual physical sexual psychological what would I reach for I'd for marriage right it's a sharing of life that's what God wants God wants to marry us I think most even biblical people don't think along those lines that's what God finally wants to accomplish when out watch watch watch in the story the woman - well if you're stopping by a well and you're a biblical person you're automatically thinking marriage and why well look where Abraham sends people to find a wife for Isaac and they stop by a well and that's where they find his wife Jacob finds his wife by a well Moses sits down by a well and then Zipporah his wife comes and so Israelite people when they said heard well they're thinking oh this is a marriage situation well here's a man sitting down in a well with a woman well san agustin said wonderfully at the woman here the Samaritan woman symbolizes the church what's the church mind you it's the Bride of Christ who's the bridegroom and so this is a kind of trysting place this well now what Jesus doing he says to her give me a drink she box your man and a Jew asking me a Samaritan and a woman for a drink oh if you knew who is asking you you'd ask him and he give you living water see this is spiritual physics right what john paul ii call the law of a gift which is that your being increases in the measure that you give it away it's the fundamental law of the spiritual life we all think the opposite my being increases the more I hang on to things right give it to me let me hang on to it but the divine life what I really want to be filled with is God right god is love therefore to be filled with love is to be filled with self gift as God gives me I give that gift away and then I get more on the divine life which I then give away and I get more of the divine life and in that great rhythm I become a participant in the divine life that's how my builder comes to marry me that's the divin izing quality of the divine mercy now welcome to the sacraments and to the mass and to confession and to the Eucharist all of it is meant to be a participation in this divine life there's second point third point I think very important today by the way that the Divine Mercy is demanding we fall very easily today into a zero-sum game which is the more I stress the divine mercy well then the less I must rest the divine demand if I see Mercy Mercy Mercy all day then I should mute demand no no that's silly that's a zero-sum non biblical non-christian logic Chesterton had it right right with the great both and logic of Christianity Jesus is fully divine and fully human and that logic sort of invades the whole of our thinking as he said we like red we like white we have a healthy hatred of pink we like both colors in there and their integrity so Mercy Mercy Mercy yes all the way you can never say it too much you can never say it too much but mercy and demand and moral demand now where do we see it here San Agustin said wonderfully that the well to which the woman comes every day symbolizes concupiscent desire that just means errant designer means spiritually dysfunctional desire so the well I come to fill myself up to be happy with wealth and honor and privilege and power and so on we all have a version of right so everybody watching this video everybody me included we all got a version of us there's something we go to and we drink and we get a little bit of satisfaction but then we're thirsty again and so we come back come back in this desperate rhythm that gets us nowhere finally isn't that precisely what Jesus says the woman's well you come every day to this well don't you you drink and you get thirsty again I want to give you water bubbling up in you to eternal life see there's the divin izing quality but the demand he's making is you got to get rid of this rhythm that you're in you got to stop coming to this stupid well and you got to come to the water I want to give you and he I love how he presses it and how beautifully he he builds up to this point he doesn't begin with this that it be dysfunctional that's when he said call your husband and she she's now at home with him he's she's comfortable she goes well I don't have a husband that's right you've had five and the one you're with now is not your husband boy is he coming down hard on her boy is he making a moral to me yes he is precisely the one who said merci merci merci relentless non Promethean share the divine life builder wants to marry you all that remains true totally and and therefore I'm making a demand on you therefore you got to let go of things that are blocking the flow of the divine life in you and so everyone listening to this video you know I can't overstate the divine mercy I don't want to merci merci merci all day and all night and all the next day but that implies demand it implies change so Jesus calls us to metanoia right to conversion the question is what's the well right what is the well name it name it you've all got one I've got one two three what are they and get rid of them you know respond to the Divine Mercy that one final point the fourth point I told the priests the Divine Mercy sends us on mission and it's beautiful you know in the Bible as I've said many times nobody is ever given an experience of God without being sent nobody does no exception Old Testament knew no one ever experiences God without being sent and so this woman we hear after speaking to Jesus puts down the water jar and then she goes into the city and she announces Christ she becomes the first evangelist right in the Gospel of John very important position the water jar that she puts down was that symbolized that's the conversion she puts down this old addictive pattern she puts it down I'm through with that I'm not doing that anymore unless we can identify what is the water jar what's the well you keep going back to unless you're willing and able to put that thing down you're not there yet but once you do what do you become automatically in evangelist she goes to tell the the town what let me tell you about this guy who's told me everything I've ever done it's a very very interesting thing not literally he didn't tell her ever but he cracked the code of her life didn't he he cracked the code he did tell her everything she's ever done because he uncovered the dynamic you been running these stupid Wells all your life that's your problem and so she she understood that she was transformed by him so she wants to tell other people about him which leads me to my favorite definition of evangelization which is one beggar telling another beggar where there's bread see if we get that then we will evangelize if we're simply doing a head trip you know let me tell you about facts about Jesus let me tell you truths about Jesus I mean fine fine that's not real evangelization real evangelization comes from people who have put down the water jar under the influence of the divinized mercy of Christ and now want to tell the world about their beggars too but they found where the bread is and they want other people to know so those are the four things I told the priests in Rome and they can I ask everyone watching this video say a prayer for those guys I think I can see them now the seven hundred priests gathered there there about five thousand priests came from all over the world different you know countries and languages say a prayer for these priests that they might be announcers and bearers of the Divine Mercy

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 162,261

Rating: 4.9104676 out of 5

Keywords: Mercy, Pope Francis, Catholic, Christian, Woman at the well, Barron, Bishop

Id: N862lyF8KtU

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 07 2016