REFLEKSI REKTOR (3HB MAC 2024) (BM/EN)

  • BM
  • EN

Yesus adalah air hidup. Adakah kita haus akan Dia? Pada Minggu yang lalu, kita merenungkan transfigurasi-Nya, memanggil murid-murid-Nya untuk fokus pada pengharapan kemuliaan menanggung skandal Salib, penderitaan penebusan. Dia mengatasi godaan di padang gurun dengan berpegang kepada Firman Tuhan dan naik ke atas gunung, boleh dikatakan, mengubah padang gurun menjadi taman keselamatan. Untuk mencapai tujuan ini, pengembaraan Abram memberi kesaksian bahawa Tuhan sentiasa melakukan apa yang benar dan adil dalam kesetiaan kepada janji-janji-Nya.

Sekarang, dengan mengikuti Tuhan, kita seolah-olah berjalan menuruni gunung menuju sumur; turun ke misi menyelamatkan jiwa-jiwa, kita belajar untuk ikut menggembala bersama Tuhan semasa Dia mengulurkan tangan kepada wanita Samaria di tepi sumur dengan menawarkan air kehidupannya. Dalam pertemuan itu, pada mulanya Tuhan bersikap seolah-olah Dia memohon belas kasihan daripada wanita itu tetapi sebenarnya, Dia memanggilnya untuk bertobat.

Setelah menyedari keperluannya akan air hidup, wanita Samaria itu mendedahkan kelemahannya. Yesus berkata kepadanya, “Pergilah, panggillah suamimu, dan datanglah ke sini.” Wanita itu menjawab, “Aku tidak mempunyai suami.” Tetapi Yesus dengan lembut tetapi tegas bercakap dengan wanita itu berkenaan dengan kehidupan perkahwinannya yang berada dalam keadaan yang tidak menentu. Sesungguhnya, wanita itu telah jatuh ke dalam jurang maut, dia telah mencapai titik terendah. Tetapi setelah membuat “pengakuan”, dia berazam untuk menyembah di dalam roh dan kebenaran, misionari belas kasihan.

Akibatnya, ramai orang dari kampung wanita itu datang untuk melihat Yesus, dan Tuhan tinggal bersama mereka selama dua hari. Kemudian, apabila Yesus bercakap kepada mereka, lebih ramai lagi menjadi percaya, dan mereka berkata kepada wanita itu, “Kami percaya tetapi bukan lagi kerana apa yang kau katakan sebab kami sendiri telah mendengar Dia, dan kami tahu bahawa Dia benar-benar Juru Selamat dunia.”

Saudara dan saudari, di dalam Yesus, tidak ada titik terendah yang Dia tidak dapat dan tidak akan angkat dari mereka yang telah terjatuh. Yang diperlukan hanyalah pengakuan yang jujur terhadap situasi yang kita alami, keinginan yang tulus untuk meminta pertolongan Tuhan, dan pertobatan hati. Oleh kerana itu, saya menggalakkan anda semua untuk datang ke Sakramen Pengakuan Dosa pada 13 dan 14 Mac 2024.

Dengan rasa syukur di dalam hati, kita akan melayani Tuhan.

Fr. Thomas Madanan

NABRE

John 4

5So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon.7A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9 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.) 10 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.” 11[The woman] said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” 13Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14but 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.” 15The 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.”16Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17The 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.’ 18For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. 23But 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. 24God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”27At 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?” 28The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, 29“Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30They went out of the town and came to him. 31Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. 36The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”39Many 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.” 40When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42and 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.”

Jesus is the living water. Do we thirst for Him? Last Sunday, we reflected on His transfiguration, calling His disciples to focus on the hope of glory enduring the scandal of the Cross, the redemptive suffering. He overcame temptations in the desert by adhering to the Word of God and moved up on the mountain, so to speak, turning the desert into a garden of salvation. To this end, the adventure of Abram testified that God always does what is right and just in faithfulness to His promises.

Now, following the Lord, we walk down, as it were, from the mountain to the well; down to the mission of saving souls, we learn to co-pasture with the Lord as He reached out to the Samaritan woman at the well by offering her living water. In that encounter, the Lord behaved, at first, as if He was at her mercy, but actually, He was calling her to conversion.

Having realized her need for the living water, the Samaritan woman exposed her vulnerability. Jesus told her, “Go and call your husband, and come back here.” She answered, “I have no husband.” But Jesus gently but firmly confronted the woman on her married life, which was in a mess. She had fallen into a bottomless pit; indeed, she had hit rock bottom. But having made “a confession”, so to speak, she thus aspired to worship in spirit and truth, a missionary of mercy.

As a result, the people from her villages came to see Jesus, and the Lord stayed with them for two days. Then, when Jesus spoke to them, many more came to believe, and they said to the woman, ‘Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves, and we know that He is the savior of the world.”

Brothers and sisters, in Jesus, there is no rock bottom from which He cannot and will not lift those who have hit it. All that is needed is a truthful acknowledgment of one’s situation, a sincere desire for God’s help, and a conversion of heart. And so, I encourage all of you to come for the Sacrament of Confession on March 13th and 14th, 2024.

With thanksgiving in our hearts, we will serve the Lord.

Fr. Thomas Madanan