"If you knew to Whom you were speaking..."

There's a lot in todays Gospel that could be "unpacked" in reflection, but after a while I've decided on one particular point to focus on today.

The promise of the Living Water is generally taken to refer two-foldly to Christ's saving power in being able to bring us to Heaven and also to the fact that His grace can satisfy us despite our constant longing to just go in for material good and be done with the struggle for Heaven. Yet we find ourselves still falling back into sin and thirsting in temptation again. Why is that?

He told the woman at the well that she needed to know Who He Is. Is this our problem also, or is there some other difficulty we have in taking His gift? It doesn't seem like our problem is from not knowing Him... but then again, maybe in large part it is. You see, while we know Him up in our heads the way we know math and physics, I think a lot of our difficulty being serious about following Him comes from the way we pay Him so little attention in any other way. Even though I know I should focus on Him, I find myself constantly distracted.

Fortunately -- or rather Providentially -- part (in a sense most) of the point of Lent is to clean up our lives and get those distractions out of the way. Now is a time especially set apart for putting aside what we normally pay attention to specifically in order to come to really know Jesus Christ better.