The request of Pope Francis at the Angelus this Sunday in which the liturgy proposes an evangelical episode of the Samaritan woman. “The exhausted and parched land also tells a world that continues to pollute: give me a drink.” On the occasion of the “24 hours for the Lord” initiative, on Friday the 17th the pontiff will confess the faithful in a Roman parish.
Vatican City () – Like Jesus at the Samaritan woman’s well, today the world also says in many ways: give me a drink, Pope Francis reminded the faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus.
The Pope referred to the page of the Gospel of John that today proposes the Lenten liturgy and described it as “an image of the abasement of God, who in Jesus, thirsty as we are, suffers our own thirst.” In this regard, Francesco quoted a comment by Don Primo Mazzolari, a 20th-century Italian priest who was in jail for being an anti-fascist: “He is thirsty like me. He has my thirst. You are very close to me, Lord. You are tied to my poverty… you have taken me from below, from the very bottom of myself, where no one can reach me”.
“But the Lord who asks for a drink – added the Pope – is the One who gives us a drink. Jesus, thirsty for love, quench our thirst with love. And he does the same with us as he did with the Samaritan woman: he meets us in our daily life, shares our thirst and promises us the living water that makes eternal life spring up in us.
The cry of this thirst today also rises from the world. “Give me a drink”, continued Francesco, “we are told by all those – in the family, at work, in all the places we frequent – who thirst for closeness, attention, listening; those who are thirsty for the Word of God and need to find an oasis in the Church where they can drink. Give me a drink is a call from our society, where haste, the consumer race and indifference generate aridity and inner emptiness. And – let’s not forget – give me a drink is the cry of so many brothers and sisters who lack water to live, while we continue to contaminate and deteriorate our common home; and she herself, exhausted and thirsty, is also thirsty. He then invited everyone to cultivate “thirst for God” and become a “source of relief for others.”
At the end of the Angelus, Francis recalled the initiative “24 hours for the Lord” which, at the invitation of the Department for Evangelization, will be held on Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th in dioceses around the world, dedicating time to Eucharistic Adoration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The same Pope will go on Friday afternoon to the Roman parish of Santa Maria delle Grazie al Trionfale, where he will confess the faithful. The pontiff recalled today that – precisely on the occasion of this initiative – last year he had consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to obtain the gift of peace. And he invited to persevere this year in prayer to the Virgin, keeping in his heart in a special way the martyred Ukrainian people.
