Not "fake news": Jesus reads the conscience of the Samaritan woman at the well

Third Sunday of Lent Year A

Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well: Not fake news.

What is news?

What is fake news?

We are often played between people on both sides of the spectrum, but no matter what happens we have to do what is best for ourselves and continue to seek the truth.

What's news for us? What is the truth for us? The "good news": the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ does not look at us impersonally, from a distance, but he reads our lives back to us from within, as he did with the Samaritan woman.

HIs love works through our conscience. Knowledge of our sins is real news but we are called to respond not with denial as if it were fake or useless.

He is Incarnate God with a heart like ours beating in his breast, one who was tempted as we are yet without sinning, one who walked the earth as we do, one who suffered fatigue and weariness, who needed to sleep and eat, needed to love friends and family.

And one who reads our sins back to us from the Cross and in the Resurrection tells the real news of His forgiving merciful love which confers life without end.

Just as is with the Samaritan woman, so for ourselves he reads our lives back to us as God. We are called respond to the truth about ourselves not with suspicion as fake news but as the good news, the truth. And called to respond in love, disciples who testify to His forgiving, life-giving love to others.

Jesus is the true "good news" for all of us but, before we can accept Him with authentic love, we must first face the real news about our sins with repentance.

Saturday, first week of Lent: "Love your enemies"

"But I say to you, love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Heavenly Father"

Matthew 5

"Christ died out of love for us, while we were still 'enemies.' The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself. 

"The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: 'charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.'"

CCC 1825

Tuesday, Lent I: "If you forgive men's sins"

"This is how you are to pray:

"Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

"If you forgive men their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions."

"The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel."⁷ "Since the Lord . . . after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask and you will receive,' and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer [the Lord's Prayer] is said first, as the foundation of further desires."<sup>8

CCC 2761</sup>