Third Sunday of Lent - First Scrutiny

Israel thirsts in the desert and tests God; Paul proclaims that God's love has been poured into our hearts; Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and offers living water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. First Scrutiny of the Elect.

The Israelites, dying of thirst in the desert, grumble against Moses and test God: "Is the Lord in our midst or not?" God instructs Moses to strike the rock at Horeb, and water flows. The psalm urges: if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts as at Meribah. Paul declares that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Despite cultural barriers, he engages her in conversation, reveals he knows her past, and offers her living water - water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. She leaves her water jar and becomes the first evangelist in John's Gospel, telling her town: "Come see a man who told me everything I have done."

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, you are the living water who satisfies the deepest thirst of the human heart. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Christ Jesus, you meet us at our wells of shame and offer us springs of eternal life. PEOPLE: Christ, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, you know everything we have done, and still you come to us. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

PRIEST: Jesus offered the Samaritan woman water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. Thirsting for that same gift, let us bring our prayers before the Lord.

DEACON/LECTOR:

1. For the Elect who today undergo the First Scrutiny: that God would deliver them from the power of sin, strengthen them for the journey ahead, and pour living water into their hearts through the Holy Spirit, we pray to the Lord.

2. For our Holy Father, Pope Leo, and the whole Church: that she would go to the wells where people are thirsty - the marginalized, the ashamed, the ones who come at noon to avoid the crowd - and offer them Christ, we pray to the Lord.

3. For those who are asking "Is the Lord in our midst?" - in illness, in grief, in doubt, in the desert places of life: that the God who brought water from rock would open springs of hope in their desert, we pray to the Lord.

4. For families: that every household would be a place where people can bring their real thirst honestly, without judgment, and find the living water of love, we pray to the Lord.

5. For the sick and all who suffer: that the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit would sustain them and that the Church would be present at their wells, we pray to the Lord.

6. For the faithful departed: that the living water Christ promised would be their eternal refreshment in the kingdom where there is no more thirst, we pray to the Lord.

PRIEST: Lord Jesus, you sat at the well and waited for a woman the world had given up on. You offered her a spring of eternal life. Sit with us now. Meet us in our thirst. And give us the water that only you can give, you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.