Dear friends,
Last Sunday I made a comment about “Anonymous Christians.” Our “Name Tag Sunday,” reminded us that Christ calls us by our names to build his Church and to make disciples. Like the disciples who knew each other by their names, we are invited to interact with one another as we strive to relate to each other by our names for the building up of our parish community and family of disciples of Jesus. Today’s gospel reading gives us an idea about discipleship. The Samaritan woman was told everything about her life. This astonishing and confrontational encounter leads to her proclamation and sharing about Jesus and her own story.
To us also, Jesus is revealing our true life stories. All we need is the courage to go and share with others. While the woman did not clearly assume that Jesus was the Christ, in spite of all of her questions and the enlightening responses from Jesus, she went to tell others to come and hear by themselves who this would or might be. “is he not the Messiah, we are waiting for? For he told me all my life story…” When and how do you make that encounter with the Lord to let him tell you your own life story? We are here to listen to him tell us in different ways our own life stories. It is now up to us to go and report it to others as we invite them to come and listen to him.
Beloved, discipleship is nothing else. It is just sharing the story of your encounter with the one who told you your whole life story. He is the one who knows everything about you, not to condemn or to judge you, but to show you true love and lead you on the right path. He enlightens us to allow us to share our experiences with others. I am wonderfully amazed by the outcome: those she reported the incident of the encounter come and listen to Jesus themselves. And what do they say to her at the end? “They said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
Brothers and sisters, this is the only thing Jesus is expecting from us: us go and share with others the story of our encounter with him. So, let us follow the example of the Samaritan woman today, as we go as intentional disciple to share the experience of our encounter with the Lord who told us the story of our whole life, with love and compassion.
And let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery