Two thirsty people meet at a well. St. Augustine wrote of that meeting, “The very one who asks for a drink promises a drink. The very one who seems to be in need, hoping to receive, is the one who is rich, wanting to give, wanting to satisfy our deepest thirsts.” Jesus promises the woman at the well, “Whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. No, the water I give shall become a fountain within, leaping up to provide eternal life.”
There are two thirsts involved in this meeting at the well. There is our human thirst and there is God’s thirst. We humans thirst for many things. We thirst for meaning in our life; we thirst for love and acceptance. We thirst for happiness. We thirst for peace and forgiveness. We thirst for God. Jesus tells us he is the only one who ultimately quenches all our thirsts.
Do we ever think of God’s thirst for us? God thirsts for us especially when we try to quench our many thirsts by drinking the polluted waters of selfishness and infidelity. Christ’s pitiful cry from his cross,” I thirst” tells us of his thirst for our response to his great act of love. When we grasp the full mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ hopefully we may realize that, as great as our many thirsts may be it is God’s eternal thirst for us, for our faith, our trust, our love, is the central mystery of our relationship with God.
During these remaining days of Lent may we try, as best we can, to satisfy God’s thirst by being faithful to the teachings of his Son by loving and forgiving others as he loves and forgives us and by being there for others in need as he is always there for us.