Religious Education Congress Closing Mass 2022

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles
 
Anaheim, California
March 20, 2022

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

I’m sure it has been a wonderful Congress for all of us, wasn’t it? It is just great that we were able to do it in person and also virtual. Thanks to all of you for joining us reflecting on the “living waters of hope”.

So first of all, let us keep our brothers and sisters in Ukraine in our prayers as we continue on the paths of our Lenten journey.

As we know, on Friday, on the feast of the Annunciation, the Holy Father Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. This is a beautiful act of faith, and we ask Holy Mary to be a mother to all her children, and to turn the hearts of those who hate to seek peace. So, let us keep praying for that.

My brothers and sisters, the world has been through a lot in these past two years. And the Church also has been through a lot. But it has been beautiful to witness, everything that all of you have been doing, carrying out your ministries during this pandemic. Thanks to your courage and apostolic zeal, and by the grace of God, you have helped our people to keep their faith, and even to grow their faith, in this time of trial.

So let us keep praying for our world and for our ministries, because in that way we are really living our Christian vocation or missionary call.

Then, let us enter into the scene in today’s Gospel. It is a story that we are all familiar with; the story of the woman at the well. As we know, it has been part of the Church’s baptismal catechesis since the earliest days. It is a story of encounter, conversion, and mission.

In the Samaritan woman, who is given no name in the Gospel, we are invited to see ourselves.

She has come to the well, in the heat of the day, when no one else is around, to draw water for her family.

She is alone with her thoughts, and in this moment, as she is carrying out her daily chores, she meets Jesus.

And Jesus is tired from his journey, he is thirsty and asks for a drink. And this encounter, on what was just an ordinary day, maybe sometime around noon, this woman’s life is changed forever.

And this passage of the Gospel preserves the story of her conversion. It’s interesting because I was thinking that it’s almost like her “diary” of her encounter with Christ. It is beautiful how this Gospel remembers every little detail of what happened — what Our Lord said, how this woman responded. We can feel her powerful emotions in this Gospel.

And as we listen to this Gospel today — at this moment when our world is so troubled by wars and different struggles, by this pandemic that has claimed so many lives and left our neighbors afraid and uncertain — this Gospel is calling  each one of us in the Church, in this moment, to return to the “well,” to the living waters of hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

So my brothers and sisters, we know that our lives truly begin in the encounter with Jesus. In him, we see the face of the living God; in him, we hear the voice that stirs something deep within us.

Just as Jesus thirsts to give living water to this woman, he is speaking to us today. As we just heard: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Jesus is not thirsting for water for himself. He is thirsting for our faith, our conversion. This scene today reminds us of his final words on the cross: “I thirst,” remember? Jesus thirsts to bring us the waters of the Spirit, the waters of salvation.

So, today let us return to the well, and open our hearts to Jesus in prayer. Let us allow Jesus to search our hearts. We have nothing to fear from the gaze of Christ, from his look of love!

In our second reading today, St. Paul tells us the truth that we all know: We are sinners. “But,” he tells us, “God proves his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And Jesus, my dear brothers and sisters, is in our midst! He is waiting for us at the well today. Let us not harden our hearts, as the Israelites did in that first reading today, and as sometimes we are so tempted to do.

Today Jesus is calling us to go deeper in our conversion.

He’s telling us that we have to ask ourselves: what do we need to change so that he will be able to give us the new living waters of the Spirit? What habits and attachments do we need to reject because they will never satisfy us, but only leave us “thirsty again.”

Then one simple sentence in the Gospel today tells us everything about the Samaritan woman’s journey. As we heard: “The woman left her water jar.” 

She does not need it anymore. She will not be going back to the old well ever again. She has been transformed in this encounter with the One who can “tell us everything,” the One who can give us “water welling up to eternal life.”

The encounter with Jesus leads to her conversion, and from now on, her life will be lived in mission — following Jesus and telling others of her friendship with him! We can hear the excitement in her voice as she proclaims to the people of her town, “Come and see.”

Again, my dear brothers and sisters, the Samaritan woman’s story is our story — yours and mine. Today, let us renew our own personal encounter with Christ, let us deepen our conversion, and deepen our commitment to his mission.

And as we know, after this pandemic, people everywhere are thirsty for the living waters of love and meaning and truth. All of us need to find new ways to proclaim Christ with confidence, to tell our friends, our neighbors, our families — “Come and see!”

This man is the “Savior of the world,” who died yet is alive evermore.² Come and see: this man who is thirsting to give us living water, thirsting to lead us to eternal life.

So, encounter, conversion, mission! This is the urgent evangelical task for the Church in this moment! And we can do it! By the grace of God, we can change the world for Jesus!

I wanted to share with you. We had youth day just a few days ago and I was so happy and so excited looking with and being with our young people who are so enthusiastic and who want to know Jesus and share their faith. The experience of Youth Day this year was so amazing. They even gave me this — and I still have it — so it says, “Let God take the wheel.” Sounds good, huh?

So it was so beautiful just to see them filled with hope, filled with confidence in the power of the Gospel.

My brothers and sisters, we should have that same excitement, we should do it too! We should have that same energy in our ministries.

It is a special moment in the life of the Church and in the life of the world. So I hope that each one of us, all of us, feel that urgency of growing in our personal relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ — going back to the heart of Jesus to the living waters of hope and sharing God with the people of our time.

May Holy Mary, Our Blessed Mother, give us strength to continue on our mission, to deepen our conversion in the image of her Son, and to bring many souls to a new encounter with him.