"If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink." Proverbs 25, 21


3rd Sunday in Lent: Reviving waters

In the work done for our purification, our part is to imitate Christ’s humility and to wait for the Father’s healing of our wounds, while concurring with the divine will and not falling back on our ego. We call the name of Jesus and his mercy will purify us, absolving our sin. We draw water from the inexhaustible fount of the Word of God and, in good time, living water will gush out of our heart.
St Augustine on today's Gospel:

http://standrewparish.blogspot.com/2008/02/3rd-sunday-of-lent-reflection.html

Reading from The Interior Castle of Saint Teresa of Jesus (VI /11, 5-7)

O Almighty God! how profound are Thy secrets and how different are spiritual matters from anything that can be seen or heard in this world! I can find nothing to which to liken these graces, insignificant as they are compared with many others Thou dost bestow on souls. This favour acts so strongly upon the spirit that it is consumed by desires yet knows not what to ask, for it realizes clearly that its God is with it. You may inquire, if it realizes this so clearly, what more does it desire and why is it pained? What greater good can it seek? I cannot tell: I know that this suffering seems to pierce the very heart, and when He Who wounded it draws out the dart He seems to draw the heart out too, so deep is the love it feels.
I have been thinking that God might be likened to a burning furnace from which a small spark flies into the soul that feels the heat of this great fire, which, however, is insufficient to consume it. The sensation is so delightful that the spirit lingers in the pain produced by its contact. This seems to me the best comparison I can find, for the pain is delicious and is not really pain at all, nor does it always continue in the same degree; sometimes it lasts for a long time; on other occasions it passes quickly. This is as God chooses, for no human means can obtain it; and though felt at times for a long while, yet it is intermittent.
In fact it is never permanent and therefore does not wholly inflame the spirit; but when the soul is ready to take fire, the little spark suddenly dies out, leaving the heart longing to suffer anew its loving pangs. No grounds exist for thinking this comes from any natural cause or from melancholy, or that it is an illusion of the devil or the imagination. Undoubtedly this movement of the heart comes from God Who is unchangeable; nor do its effects is resemble those of other devotions in which the strong absorption of delight makes us doubt their reality.

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