Third Sunday in Lent (A) 23 March 2014
At
ease with God
José Antonio Pagola
It’s a charming scene. Tired from the journey,
Jesus is sitting at the well of Jacob. Soon a woman arrives to draw water. She belongs to a semi-pagan
people, despised by the Jews. Quite spontaneously Jesus begins to talk to her.
He is incapable of despising anyone. Rather, he pleads with great tenderness:
“Woman, may I have some water.”
The woman is surprised. How dare he make
contact with a Samaritan! How does he stoop to speak to an unknown woman? The
next words of Jesus will surprise her still more: “If you knew the gift of God
and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would
have given you living water.”
There are many people who, through all these
years, have been distancing themselves
from God, without noticing what was really happening in their hearts. Today God
happens to be a stranger to them. Everything to do with him seems empty and
meaningless to them: a childish world ever more remote.
I understand them. I know exactly how they
feel. I, too, have gone on slowly distancing myself from that “God of my
childhood”, who awakened in me so many fears, discomfort and unease. Probably,
without Jesus I would never have found a God who today is for me a Mystery of
goodness: a friendly, welcoming presence in whom I can always confide.
I have never felt drawn to the task of
verifying my faith with scientific proofs: I think it is a mistake to treat the
mystery of God as if it were a task needed to be proved in a laboratory.
Neither have religious dogmas helped me to find God. I have quite simply
allowed myself to be carried by a trust in Jesus that has kept growing through
the years.
I would not be able to say exactly how my
faith is sustained through a religious crisis which also shakes me up as it
does everyone else. I would only say that Jesus has drawn me to live faith in
God in a simple way from the depths of my being. If I listen, God does not
remain silent. If I open up to him, he does not close up. If I open my heart to
him, he accepts me. If I surrender to him, he sustains me. If I collapse, he
raises me up.
I
believe that the first and most important experience is to find
ourselves comfortable with God because we find him a “saving presence.” When
someone knows what it is to be at ease with God because, in spite of our
mediocrity, mistakes and egoism, he receives us just the way we are, and
encourages us to face life peacefully,
he will not easily abandon his faith. Today many people abandon God before
having known him. If they had the experience of God Jesus communicates, they
would seek him.
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