Third Sunday of Lent – Year A, 2026
In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, we hear that “in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses.”
The people of Israel had just been freed from slavery in Egypt. God had rescued them and was leading them toward the Promised Land. But their journey took them through the wilderness.
The land was dry. The sun was hot. And their water had run out. They were tired, and thirsty. And so they began to complain.
But the story is not just about physical thirst. It is about something deeper. It is about the thirst that lives in every human heart.
The readings today revolve around this theme. They speak about thirst, water, bread, and nourishment. And through these images they reveal something essential about our relationship with God.
Human life begins with thirst. We thirst for meaning. We thirst to be known. We thirst to be loved. That thirst lies behind almost everything we do. It drives our work, our relationships, our searching, and sometimes even our mistakes.
Saint Thomas Aquinas once observed that even when our desires are misdirected, they still arise from a deeper longing for fullness. We search in many places for something that will finally satisfy us.
The people of Israel felt that thirst in the desert. Their thirst was so strong that they began to think that even slavery in Egypt would be better than the dry wilderness. Yet God did not abandon them. From a rock in the desert, God brought forth water. And from heaven God sent manna, bread for the journey.
God became their well of life and their bread from heaven.
In the Gospel we see another thirsty person. The Samaritan woman comes to the well at midday. She is thirsty for water, but beneath that physical thirst there is another thirst in her life. Her story reveals a long search for love and belonging. Her many relationships have not satisfied the deeper longing of her heart.
And there, at the well, she meets Jesus.
Jesus begins with a simple request: “Give me a drink.”
Saint Augustine noticed something very striking in this moment. The one who asks for a drink is the very one who promises a drink. The one who appears to be in need is actually the one who has come to give.
Jesus tells the woman:
“Whoever drinks the water that I give will never thirst again. The water I give will become within them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
In other words, Jesus himself is the living water. He is the fulfillment of the deepest human longing.
The woman had come to draw water from the well. Instead she discovers the one who can refresh the human soul.
When she begins to trust him, when she receives his word, something changes. Her thirst is finally directed toward the one who can satisfy it.
But the Gospel also reminds us that the mystery goes even deeper.
We often think of our spiritual life in terms of our thirst for God. And that is certainly true. The Psalms say it beautifully: “My soul is thirsting for the living God.”
But today’s Gospel reveals something even more astonishing. It shows us God’s thirst for us.
It is Jesus who begins the conversation.
It is Jesus who asks for a drink.
It is Jesus who seeks out the woman.
God is not distant. God is not indifferent. God thirsts for our faith, our trust, our love.
When we look ahead to the mystery of Good Friday, we will hear Jesus speak from the cross the words: “I thirst.” Those words are not only the cry of human suffering. They are also the expression of divine love. They reveal the longing of God for humanity.
And so Lent brings us back to the essential truth of our lives: we are nothing without God. God is our drink. God is our sustenance.
That is why the Church places before us not only the image of water, but also the image of bread.
Jesus says in this Gospel that doing the will of the Father is his food. Later he will speak of himself as the Bread of Life.
And we encounter both of these mysteries in the sacraments of the Church. In baptism we receive the living water that begins eternal life within us. In the Eucharist we receive the bread from heaven, the food that sustains our journey.
There are moments when we realize the depth of what we are doing here at the altar. We receive Christ as our food and drink, our nourishment and life. We allow him to become part of us, just as food and drink become part of our own body.
Our hunger and thirst are enormous. But even that is not the whole story.
Saint Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Romans that God’s love surpasses everything we could imagine. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The journey of God toward us is greater than our journey toward God.
Our thirst for God is real. But God’s thirst for us is even greater.
And so the invitation of this Gospel is very simple.
Come to the well.
Come to Christ.
Drink deeply.
Because the living water he gives is the love of God itself, poured into our hearts.
And once we have tasted that water, we will discover what the Samaritan woman discovered: that only God can satisfy the deepest thirst of the human soul.
Drink it in.