When I look back at my past mistakes, I sometimes wonder if I deserve God’s blessings. I know the wrong choices I’ve made, the times I turned away from Him, and the things I’ve done that I’m not comfortable to share with others. Still, He continues to bless, love, and welcome me back. That’s grace.

God’s love is not something we earn. It’s freely given, even when we feel unworthy. Like the prodigal son, all we need to do is turn back to the Father. He is already waiting for us with open arms.

So, what do we do when we receive this unconditional love, this mercy? We don’t need to live in the past. We live in the now with gratitude. We live today with purpose. The past doesn’t define us anymore. What matters is that we choose to walk toward Jesus, to leave behind what kept us away from Him, and to live the life He calls us to.

Monching Bueno (ramon_bueno@yahoo.com)

reflect

Are you running away from God or are you running toward Him today?

Lord, thank You for Your mercy. Help me to let go of my past and run toward You. May my life be a reflection of Your love. Amen.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs, pray for us.

First Reading | Exodus 17:3-7

Surely, we would grumble too, if we were stuck in a desert without much water. However, in this case, we can see how ungrateful God’s people have become considering that He has freed them from captivity and slavery in Egypt. Surely, it is not too much to ask that they trust God to lead them safely through the desert, given the miracles He performed to free them.

³ In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” ⁴ So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!” ⁵ The Lord answered Moses, “Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. ⁶ I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.” This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. ⁷ The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9

R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

¹ Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation. ² Let us come to his presence with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psalm to him. (R) ⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides. (R) ⁸ Oh, that today you would hear his voice: “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, ⁹ where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.” (R)  

Second Reading | Romans 5:1-2, 5-8

This reading is a beautiful description about the nature of hope. Let us reflect on what it means to place our trust and hope in God. May we deepen our trust in Him to empower our witness to the Gospel. The deeper our faith, the more expansive and convincing our witness to the Gospel truths becomes.

¹ Brothers and sisters: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by fait to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. ⁵ And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ⁶ For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. ⁷ Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Gospel | John 4:5-42

Jesus tells the disciples that His food comes from doing the will of the Father. Jesus never misses an opportunity to deepen their understanding of His call for their lives. Let us reflect on the powerful image that Jesus presents to them. The disciples are worried about satisfying their hunger, but Jesus is more concerned with remaining faithful to His Father’s will.

Gospel Acclamation

Lord, you are truly the Savior of the world; give me living water, that I may never thirst again.

⁵ Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”(For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “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.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ ¹⁸ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” ²⁷ At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and came to him. ³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” ³⁹ Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” ⁴⁰ When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more began to believe in him because of his word, ⁴² and 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.”

Reflect

Aside from food and drink, what do you “hunger” for? How does Jesus satisfy your soul’s hunger and thirst

Read the Bible in one year! Read REVELATION 11 - 14 today.

The Well That Came to Meet Us

A well is a fixed thing. It stays where it is, carved deep into the earth, waiting for the thirsty to come. In the Old Covenant, even in the wilderness, the people of Israel had to cry out before water was given. Moses had to strike the rock at Massah and Meribah before the parched people could drink.

In today’s Gospel, we meet a woman at a well—a woman whose life is marked by thirsts she cannot seem to quench. She comes in the heat of the day, perhaps to avoid the stares and whispers of others. She comes, as we all do sometimes, tired and worn out by the burden of surviving. But what happens next changes everything.

Jesus does not sit safely and wait in a temple to be sought. He goes out. He chooses to pass through Samaria, a place most Jews avoid, and sit by that particular well, at that particular hour, knowing exactly who will come. He begins the conversation. He offers Living Water.

The shift is profound. God is no longer only found in fixed places—a well,a rock, a temple. In Christ, Living Water moves toward the thirsty. He seeks the wounded heart. 

The woman at the well is transformed. She leaves her jar behind—the symbol of her old thirsts—and runs to tell others, “Come and see!” The one who came empty is sent full. The one who hid herself now becomes a bearer of good news.

Today’s readings invite us to trust that God is not waiting far off. He comes looking for us. He sits at the wells of our tiredness and shame, offering Himself. He thirsts for us far more than we thirst for Him. And when we let ourselves be found, we, too, can become witnesses—not because we are perfect but because we have tasted Living Water, and we cannot keep it to ourselves. 

Fr. Albert Garong, SSP

reflection question

Where is Jesus seeking you today—not in your strengths, but in the places you are most thirsty for Him?

Lord, meet me in my thirst, and let Your Living Water flow through my life to others. Amen.

Today,I pray for: ______________________________________