Water is a tremendous gift! Call to your awareness your total dependency on water. In every culture, water is a powerful metaphor for life. Water is associated with mystical experiences. Where is your favourite body of water and why does it hold a special place in your life?
During Lent, like the Israelites in the Book of Exodus, we are also led into the wilderness, where God speaks to our heart. In the dry wasteland of living out of our false self, we are asked to empty ourselves of all that clutters this landscape, so that there is space for God. We take an honest look at ourselves. In letting go of limiting forms of life, we can be filled with the fullness of authentic life in God. The way of the wilderness is the way to a renewed self. God will “satisfy your needs in parched places … you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (Isaiah 58:11)
What is your experience of thirst for God? God invites us to: “Come to the waters, all who thirst; … come and drink with joy!” (Isaiah 55:1) Jesus beckons: “If any are thirsty, let them come to me! Let them come and drink who believe in me! Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37b-38) In our thirst for God, we must go to the deep spring within ourselves to encounter the Spirit of Jesus, the Living Water. We will discover that God faithfully and compassionately accompanies us on our inner journey to wholeness.
After Jesus was baptized, the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness. Jesus knows what it is like to be in a barren land thirsting for signs of new life and refreshment. God’s angels ministered to Jesus, in his humanity. As the waters of life were poured over us in Baptism, we became one with Christ. During our Lenten journey to new life, we pray that God will help us to recognize and accept God’s constant care for us in our personal deserts.
Our intimacy with God deepens when we take time daily to commune with God in prayer. Going to Christ as to a well and drinking deeply of his Spirit, our thirst is quenched. As earthen vessels, we can then be water-bearers to others who thirst for life-giving nourishment. Who have you been a living well for? What persons have been living wells for you? (Refer to Seasons of Your Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)
Kathleen O’Keefe CSJ