Pope: Jesus is the Response to Our Thirst

by Admin · March 9, 2026

Pope Leo XIV, Angelus, 8 March, 2026 –

Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday!

Since the first centuries of the Church’s history, the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the healing of the man born blind and the resurrection of Lazarus illuminate the path of those who, at Easter, will receive Baptism and begin a new life. These great Gospel passages, which we read, beginning this Sunday, are intended for the catechumens to help them on their journey to become Christians. At the same time, these passages are heard once again by the entire community of believers to help them to be more authentic and joyful Christians.

Indeed, Jesus is the response to our thirst. As he suggested to the Samaritan woman, the encounter with him stirs in the depths of each person “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” ( Jn 4:14). How many people in the entire world are searching even today for this spiritual spring! “Sometimes I am there too,” writes the young Etty Hillesum in her diary. “But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again.” [1] Dear friends, there is no energy better spent than that dedicated to freeing our heart. For this reason, Lent is a gift: we are starting the third week and now we are able to intensify the journey!

It is also written in the Gospel that: “His disciples came [and] they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman” (Jn 4:27). They are reluctant to accept his mission as their own, so the Master has to prompt them: “Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting” (Jn 4:35). The Lord still says to his Church: “Lift up your eyes and recognize God’s surprises!” In the fields, four months prior to the harvest, one sees practically nothing. But there, where we see nothing, grace is already at work and its fruits are ready to be gathered. The harvest is great: perhaps the workers are few because they are distracted by other activities. Jesus, on the other hand, is attentive. According to custom, he ought to have simply ignored that Samaritan woman; instead, Jesus speaks with her, listens to her, and shows her respect – without a hidden agenda and without disdain.

How many people seek in the Church this same sensitivity, this availability! And how beautiful it is when we lose track of time in order to give attention to the person we are encountering, as we see in this passage. Jesus was so spiritually nourished by God’s desire to reach people on the deepest levels that he even forgot to eat (cf. Jn 4:34). Thus, the Samaritan woman becomes the first of many female evangelizers. Because of her testimony, many from her village of despised and rejected people came to meet Jesus, and also in them faith bubbled forth like pure water.

Sisters and brothers, today let us ask Mary, Mother of the Church, to be able to serve, with Jesus and like Jesus, those men and women thirsting for truth and justice. This is not the time for opposition between one church and another, between “us” and “them”: those who worship God seek to be men and women of peace, who worship him in Spirit and in truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24).

[1] Etty Hillesum, Diary, London 1985, 58-59.