Third Sunday of Lent
Sunday, March 8, 2026
St. James Cathedral (5:30pm Vigil) & Immaculate Conception (11:00AM)
 
What are we longing for? What are we hoping for? For what do we thirst? And do we believe that the Lord can satisfy that longing, can fulfill that hope, can quench that thirst? Those are the questions that emerge from our scriptures today and they are the questions that shape this week of our Lenten journey to Easter.
 
In the Book of Exodus, we hear the people of Israel, wandering in the desert, freed from slavery in Egypt, but still unclear about what they were freed for. They cry out to Moses, as fear takes over, and they wonder if things weren’t better when they were enslaved. Even though it wasn’t ideal, at least they knew where their next meal was coming from, and when they would get their next drink of water.
 
And so they put the Lord to the test. In their thirst for water, they wonder aloud about this God who led them out of slavery and into freedom. Had he left them alone or was he in their midst?
 
Isn’t that our question sometimes? Isn’t that at the heart of our longing, our hoping our thirsting?
 
In the gospel, Jesus encounters a woman who has wandered and searched, has longed and hoped and thirsted, in her own broken way. We learn that her wandering has led to five failed marriages and to her living with still another man who is not her husband. She goes to the well that day seeking water to quench her physical thirst and she finds much more.
 
The thirsting Chosen People and the thirsting Samaritan woman root us in our tradition of hoping and longing and searching and thirsting during our Lenten journey, as we make our way to the living water of Easter.
 
In light of our scriptures, we ask ourselves those questions, what are we longing for? What are we hoping for? For what do we thirst?
 
For those among us who are perhaps struggling with addiction, we long for the peace and serenity that comes from sobriety. For others who are battling depression and despair, we hope for a lifting of the darkness that surrounds us.

For those working through the pain of a broken relationship, we thirst for wholeness and healing. For those living with the diagnosis of cancer, we hope for a cure while trying to trust that God will be with us no matter what. For those who have lost a loved one, we thirst for new life and reunion in God’s kingdom of everlasting life.
 
And during these days, we thirst deeply for peace in the midst of war and violence.
 
Out in the desert, facing their own fears, the Chosen People asked that fundamental question, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”

And they received their answer, as the Lord provides water to satisfy their thirst. He is in their midst, continuing to provide for their care. But their satisfaction will be short-lived. This is only the beginning of the ebb and flow of their relationship with God as they wander in the desert, longing and searching and thirsting for him. At times they feel alone and afraid and at other times they feel reassured and cared for by God. 
 
In the conversation at the well, the woman from Samaria gradually comes to see Jesus for who he is: the Messiah, the Anointed one who confronts her with her brokenness and offers her hope; offers her living water.
 
As we make our way through these days of Lent, Saint Paul reassures us that this hope, rooted in the God of life, rooted in the Son, the Christ who has been raised from death to life – this hope does not disappoint. This hope does not disappoint because it begins with God’s love for us. Just as he did for the chosen people of Israel and the woman at the well, God responds to our thirsting, our hoping, our longing by pouring his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
 
And God does this for us not as disconnected and isolated individuals, bus as a people. Our hope is born and nourished in a community of faith. We cannot go it alone. We need each other to hope and to believe. Yes, we need our individual relationship with Christ, but we also need each other’s faith, and our communal relationship with the living God. That’s why there’s no such thing as a private baptism – it might be small but it is never private. No matter what, we baptize within, and into, a community of faith. And we pledge ourselves to that community, and that community pledges itself to us.
 
If one of us is struggling in the desert of addiction, we are struggling. If one of us is longing for freedom from despair, or grief or physical suffering, we are longing.  If one of us is thirsting for justice and peace and end to the insanity of war, we are thirsting. We do all of this together. We cannot hope alone.
 
Once the woman at the well discovers who Jesus is, she has to share her newly discovered faith with the others of her town. The people of Israel journey and struggle together in the desert.
 
The hope of which Paul writes to the Church in Rome, the hope which summons our Elect to life in the Church, is the hope born in the waters that quench the thirst of the people of God. We cannot hope alone. Together we are able to hope, together we are able to believe, together we come to this Table to be fed by the God who is in our midst.
 
May our sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ strengthen us in the hope that will not disappoint, and free us from whatever might be getting in the way of our believing that God is with us. And may this communion with the Lord and each other free us for a deeper relationship with the one who can satisfy all our longing and quench our deepest thirst.

Father Gary F. Lazzeroni