They believe because they themselves hear
THE USUAL thing that we write on Sundays is about the day’s First Reading, the Responsorial Psalm, the Second Reading, and of course the day’s gospel.
Today, in the light of the fear that is enveloping the people of the world as a result of the prevalence of the COVID-19 which is now considered by the
World Health Organization
(WHO) as a pandemic, we are bringing back the first reading of last Sunday’s mass before we will proceed with today’s gospel. We will also share our observation of the situation inside the Church where we attended mass last Sunday, March 8, 2020.
First we have noticed that there were a lot of vacant seats during last Sunday’s second mass. This is indicative of how the faithful fear of the present epidemic.
When the mass started, it was apparent that there was some kind of an advance compliance of the mandate for people converging in certain areas to observe social distancing.
Quoting Genesis 12:1-2 the reader says, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your Father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” The land that the Lord is telling us are the churches, the small prayer groups, the households or gatherings of faithful glorifying the Lord. It is not the grocery stores, the malls, etc. It is time to humble ourselves before the Lord. None can stop the corona virus except the blood of Christ.
During that mass celebration we took the first reading as just the reiteration of God’s instruction to Abram. But when we read the contents of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte’s list of measures to be resorted to if we are to help prevent the further and faster spread of the deadly virus, it was only then when we were kind of being hit by lightning. We were struck by its relevance.
Yes, in the instructions issued by the lady mayor of Davao City early Thursday evening, she ordered the faithful that for the meantime that the virus is still much around bringing harm to the people they better refrain from attending religious activities such as masses and prayer meetings and others.
Yes, the mayor’s mandate appears to be in strong contradiction with that of Christ’s instruction to Abram, the man who is the personification of the faithful around the world.
Clearly, the objective of the Mayor’s mandate is to ensure the health and wellness of the city’s population part of the many generations of Abram’s flock. In so doing she has to make the people decide to temporarily stray from the direction provided by God as instructed to Abram.
What then is worth watching in the light of this development on the corona virus pandemic is how the leaders of the religious sector and the government will reconcile the contradiction.
“Let us to see.”
Now let us proceed to this Sunday’s gospel in John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42.
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph, Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samarian 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. Jesus answered and said to her: “If you know 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.” 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 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.” 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…
“I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of his word, 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.”