Third Sunday of Lent – Sr. Magdalen Lawler, SNDdeN
March 8, 2026
John 4: 5-42
And there were many other women there… Mark 15.41
This phrase from Mark’s Gospel has always struck me as being very powerful in our Notre Dame tradition. It seems not only to summarise Julie’s experience in her vision at Compiegne, where she saw us, as ‘many other women’ gathered around the Cross of Jesus, but, as we know, it refers to all the women who ‘followed him, looked after him when he was in Galilee, and came up to Jerusalem with him’. according to Mark’s narrative of the Passion. Mark, 15. 41
Among those women we know the names of some, but others are unknown to us. One of those might have been the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at Jacob’s well, in modern day Nablus, on the West Bank of the Jordan in Palestine/Israel. Jewish, Samaritan, Christian and Muslim traditions all associate the well with the patriarch, Jacob. The Eastern churches name this woman, and celebrate her feast day. They call her Photine, ‘the enlightened one’. Her name derives from the Greek word for light and many young girls are still given her name. We can also associate her name with familiar names in our own cultures like ‘Fiona’ in Scotland, ‘Fionn’ in Ireland and ‘Svetlana’ in Russia. ‘Chiara’ ‘Clara’, and ‘Claire’ are associated with her, as are ‘Lucy’ and many others. To the unnamed Woman at the Well Jesus revealed that He is the Living Water, the One Who Is (I Am) and the Messiah; a ‘trinity’ of revelations that are not yet revealed to the apostles who accompany him on this particular journey. John’s narrative doesn’t really introduce the Holy Spirit to the apostles until the so-called Last Supper Discourse, but here this woman also learns that true worship is ‘in spirit and in truth’. Jn. And she comes to recognise Jesus as ‘Messiah, the anointed One’.
The woman whom Jesus encounters is from a despised minority group. See this woman in your mind’s eye as she leaves the town to draw water from Jacob’s well at noonday. She is about to hold the longest dialogue with Jesus that is recorded in the Gospels! Let us meet her now and try to discover what her important message is. We are drawn more deeply to understand Jesus through her influence.
‘I am the Light of the world; (he says) anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark. They will have the light of life.’ (Jn 8:12)
The Samaritan woman represents so many marginalised women whom we encounter in our ministries. As a first century Palestinian woman, she was most unlikely to have been able to sue for divorce, but she could have BEEN divorced. Among some very trivial reasons, grounds for divorce included not being able to bear a child, which was considered a disgrace. She might have been bereaved and entered into ‘Levirate’ marriage with other family members, but still, no issue ensued and perhaps she became the retainer of a reluctant distant relative, who treated her like a servant. She is not necessarily a prostitute, unless driven to that by destitution. The woman, a member of a despised minority group, appears also to be held in disdain by the other women in the town and possibly by all the townsfolk. She comes at noonday under the burning glare of the sun to collect water when no-one else is around. But her encounter with Jesus transforms her. She abandons her bucket which she no longer needs, and she becomes a source of Living Water herself as she carries the message of Jesus to all the townsfolk at the city gates, where the menfolk gathered.
Might she indeed have been one of the faithful women who followed Jesus, (akolouthein), looked after him when he was in Galilee (diakonein), and came up to Jerusalem with him’(sunanabainein)? The Greek words for these three verbs mean ‘discipleship’ ‘ministry’(diakonia) and attentive witness to the ‘ascent to Jerusalem, meaning the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. May Photine and the ‘many other women’ shift and make space for us, too, along with Julie and Francoise, as we gather around the cross and accompany Jesus once again on the journey of this Lent and Eastertide.
John 4: 5-42
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 Samaritan 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 knew 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 this 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.”
Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped 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 worshipers 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 speaking with you.”
At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more 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.”
The Gospel of the Lord
Meet Sister Magdalen Lawler, SNDdeN
