St Teresa & St John Southworth Churches, Cleveleys
Fr Chris Cousens—Phone: 853340
Rev Bernard Ward (Deacon) (Tel: 858346)
Enquiries for St John Southworth: Phone: 853340
12 March 2023
http://www.st-teresas-church.co.uk
Email: st.teresas.cleveleys@gmail.com
Lancaster Roman Catholic Diocesan Trustees Registered Charity Number 23433
Sunday : Third Sunday of Lent
Contents: Gospel
Notices
Gospel Reflection
Gospel: John 4:5-42
Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there and Jesus tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan women said to him, ‘What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?’ – Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied:
‘If you only knew what God is offering
And who it is that is saying to you:
Give me a drink,
You would have been the one to ask,
And he would have given you living water.’
‘You have no bucket sir,’ she answered ‘and the well is deep: how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?’ Jesus replied:
‘Whoever drinks this water
Will get thirsty again;
But anyone who drinks the water that I shall give
Will never be thirsty again:
The water that I shall give
Will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.’
‘Sir,’ said the woman ‘give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water. I see you are a prophet, sir’ said the woman. ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’ Jesus said:
Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
When you will worship the Father
Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You worship what you do not know;
We worship what we do know;
For salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour will come – in fact it is here already –
When true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth:
That kind of worshipper the Father wants.
God is spirit, and those who worship
Must worship in spirit and truth.’
The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah – that is Christ – is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything.’ ‘I who am speaking to you,’ said Jesus ‘I am he.’
Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman’s testimony when she said, ‘He told me all I have ever done,’ so, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he 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 really is the saviour of the world.’
Gospel Reflection : “Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again”
This Sunday’s Gospel is about a person coming to the well when nobody else came. It would be the middle of the hot day. She seems to be a person with a bad reputation, who would be gossiped about in the town. It is likely she came to the well at this time to avoid other people, who normally came to the well first thing in the morning when it was cooler. She had looked for truth and love in her life, but in empty places. Jesus just sat with her, listened, shared his life story, and then she knew that she had found ‘living water’. It was unusual she would speak to him, and the disciples were amazed he would speak to her. She was a Samaritan woman, and the Jews and Samaritans were deeply divided. But, wasn’t Jesus a great person for conversations with all sorts of people? His mission was to save all of us, not just some of us.
The ‘living water’ is like the times when you get a real sense of love; of knowing very well another person, and being known, warts and all; of finding the truth, of courage and endurance, of growing in faith. The living water lasts. That living water is commonly thought of as the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus always with us, but who wants us to let him in. In the coming weeks the Sunday Gospel will cover three great symbols of our faith – water (the woman at the well, light (the man born blind), and life (Lazarus).
Whatever the experience did for the woman at the well, it brought her running back to the town, a woman who previously spoke to nobody and was looked down on. She must have been one of the first to spread the ‘Good News’. She was a new witness for Jesus. She said little except that the joy of her life brought people to him.
We Remember In Our Prayers Julia Buschini whose Funeral was last week, Audrey Waller whose Funeral is at Carleton Crematorium on Monday 13th March at 11am, Katherine Birch whose Funeral is at 1.30 pm at St. John Southworth, also on 13th March, and Maureen Milne whose Funeral Mass is at St. Teresa’s at 11.15 am on Thursday 16th March We remember these and their families, and those whose anniversaries are at this time. May they all be in God’s peace.
We Also Remember In Our Prayers the children who are preparing for their First Holy Communion in May. Next Thursday afternoon (16th March) they will be celebrating their first Sacrament of Reconciliation, a significant stepping-stone in the journey of believing in God’s love and forgiveness, and peace.
Stations of The Cross This Sunday, and every Sunday in Lent, we have the Stations of the Cross Service, with Benediction, at 3 pm at St. Teresa’s. This is a short Service (about thirty-five minutes) which is very suitable for our Lenten reflection.
A Very Big Thank You for your generosity in the CAFOD Family Fast Collection last weekend, which raised £657.07 at St. Teresa’s and £107.00 at St John Southworth. Of course the previous two Sundays a collection was taken to support CAFOD’s work with the victims of the terrible earthquake.
The Regular Collection for The SVP (St. VIncent de Paul Society), supporting the local needy, was postponed whilst we collected for CAFOD. The SVP have their collection at each Mass this Weekend.
The Church Shop, in the porch at St. Teresa’s, is open before and after each weekend Mass, and currently has cards and gifts for St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and First Holy Communion. The last few remaining Diocesan Directories are also on sale, priced at £5. “We look forward to seeing you”.
100 Club Winners for February : Alan Murphy £15, Kathryn Brimelow £10, Mary Holland £5
The Food Pantry, situated in the kitchen across from the entrance as you come into St. Teresa’s Church, is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, between 10 30 am and 12 noon, and on Wednesdays, 2.30 pm – 4 pm. This free facility may be of help to many of us in these hard times.
Daily Reflections for this week
Monday (Cardinal Basil Hume)
There are certain words which I find to be very expressive of the way that I think about life. Pilgrim is one such. I am in search. I am trying to understand the ultimate purpose of my life, the meaning of it. It would be hard to find the answers to these questions from a survey of public opinion. We are, as a society, confused, distracted, uninterested, in fact lost. The
pilgrim may find that God has spoken in many ways but most emphatically through a Son, whom to see is to have seen the Father Himself. I need to dwell on certain experiences which can lead me to catch just a glimpse of God; experiences that are foretastes of something that will be mine one day, hints of realities that cannot be known through my senses but are nonetheless true.
Scripture (Ps. 42: 1-3,5-8, 43:3)
As a deer yearns for running streams so I yearn for you, my God. I thirst for God, the living God; when shall I go to see the face of God? Why be so downcast? Why all these sighs? Hope in God, I will praise him still, my saviour, my God. Deep is calling to deep, by the roar of your cataracts all your waves and breakers have rolled over me. In the daytime God sends his faithful love, and even at night; the song it inspires in me is a prayer to my living God. Send out your light and your truth; they shall be my guide, to lead me to your holy mountain to the place where you dwell.
Tuesday (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh)
The God we encounter must be as true as we who seek him. But is not God always true? Is he not always himself, unchanging? Of course. But it is not only God as he is in himself who is involved in our prayers. It is also the image we have of him, for our attitude depends not only on what he is in himself but also on what we believe him to be. If we have a false image of God, our attitude towards him and our prayer will alter accordingly. It is important that throughout our life, from day to day, we learn to know God as he is.
Scripture (John 4:22-26)
‘You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour is coming – indeed is here already – when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that the Messiah – that is, Christ – is coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.’ Jesus said, That is who I am, I who speak to you.’
Wednesday (Evelyn Underhill)
The spirit of worship has never finished discovering and adoring the ever new perfections of that which it loves. ‘My beloved is like strange islands!’ said St. John of the Cross. Islands in an uncharted ocean, found after a long and difficult voyage, which has made great demands on faith, courage and perseverance; islands that reveal beauties that we have never dreamed of and a life of independent loveliness, to which our dim everyday existence gives no clue; yet never reveal everything, always have some unanswered questions, keep their ultimate secret still.
Scripture (Hebrews 3: 1-2,6,12-14)
That is why all you who are holy and share the same heavenly call should turn your minds to Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith. He was trustworthy to the one who appointed him, just like Moses, who remained trustworthy in all his household; but Christ is trustworthy as a son is, over his household. And we are his household, as long as we fearlessly maintain the hope in which we glory. Every day, keep encouraging one another so that none of you is hardened by the lure of sin, because we have been granted a share with Christ only if we keep the grasp of our first confidence to the end.
Thursday (Jean Vanier)
To grow on the journey toward wholeness, people need real nourishment. Without it, the energies of hope will waste away. We are all in danger of living superficially, on the periphery of ourselves. We tend to react to immediate stimuli, to; we tend to flee from the treasure hidden within us. When for one reason or another we become aware of it, or when it is touched by an external event, we are nourished. We are nourished by
everything that stirs the essential in us and brings it to consciousness.
Scripture (John 4:10-14)
‘If only you knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you “give me something to drink” you would have been the one to ask and he would have given you living water. No-one who drinks the water I shall give will ever be thirsty again. The water I shall give you will become in you a spring of water, welling up for eternal life.’ ‘Sir,’ said the woman, ‘give me some of that water, so that I may never be thirsty or come here again to draw water.’
Friday (The Spirituality of Charles de Foucauld)
The reader is constantly meeting with words such as poverty, self-effacement, suffering, self-denial, in Brother Charles’ writing. Does this not betray a rather morbid picture of the Christian life? Our account, however, would be incomplete if it did not state quite categorically that he was happy. He was always happy because he had discovered a living spring, a water of life welling up for ever: the imitation of Jesus to do as he did, to be like him. There can be no greater joy for the disciple than to be like his Master.
Scripture (Isaiah 58:9-11)
If you do away with the yoke, the clenched fist, the malicious words, if you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkest hour will be like noon. Yahweh will always guide you, will satisfy your needs in the scorched land; he will give strength to your bones and you will be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never run dry.
Martin Bennett