The encounter with Jesus marks our lives.  It is supposed to change something -  to unsettle us in a good way.  It should start a fire in our lives that should result in us being sent forth into a concrete mission.

 

The Samaritan woman went to the well with a very specific intention: to get the water she needed for the day, and for that she needed to use a bucket.  But after spending time with Jesus, she left the empty bucket there at the well.  She was transformed by her encounter with Our Lord, and she went back into the town as a missionary - with the mission of bringing Jesus to others.  

 

After listening to and contemplating this beautiful story of conversion, we must ask ourselves some questions.  Do I set aside time in each day to have encounters like this with Jesus?  REAL encounters that go to my core?  Do I let those encounters change me - do I feel marked or unsettled by his revealing words of truth?  Does that encounter bubble up like a spring in my soul, overflowing into a missionary desire to bring Jesus to others?

The passion for Jesus that grows in us when we spend time with Him, should produce in us a state of vigilance and expectation.  It is our proximity to the one that gives us living water that makes us start to have deep thirst for what is holy, and helps us to put in their place all of the secondary desires in our life that can distract us and entertain us too much.  Our encounter with Jesus - our intimacy with him -  happens in the Sacraments and in prayer, because God chose to reveal himself to us in the intimacy of a personal relationship.

 

My brothers and sisters, today we have the chance to rejoice with the least of our society, with the Samaritans of today and profess with them our act of faith "Jesus is the Savior of the world" 

The experience of the encounter with Jesus will help us to have a life centered in Him and change our lives, It will transform us into saints!  Prayer transforms us!  It can transform us from proud to humble.  From lazy to dedicated and available to the Lord.  It can transform us from sinners into saints!  Our encounter with Christ is THAT powerful!

My dear family, just like the Samaritan woman, Jesus wants us to be missionaries in our own states of life and specific vocations.  He calls us with our own capacities and with the talents we all have received from Him.  I know in my heart, as the pastor of the Saint Mark's family, that this parish is meant to be A Parish of the New Evangelization - called, marked, a little unsettled with the desire to be like the Samaritan woman - to announce that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.