Fallling in Love

3^rd Sunday of Lent (Scrutiny)

Falling in love with Jesus

This is a love story.

This is the story of all of us, but in particular, it is the story of our catechumens with us today who have been searching, praying, and drawing closer to Jesus these past several months. And that is why we have read these readings today, because we have our catechumens present. At all the other Masses today we will hear different readings, but the Church says we must read these readings today, for them to hear, because they are nearing the completion of this stage of their faith journey, to enter fully into the life and love of Jesus in his Church through baptism, confirmation and first eucharist at the Easter Vigil.

Many people think that the RCIA program is all about knowledge, all about learning about the Catholic Church, and partly it is. But mostly, it is about falling in love. There are lots of people who have knowledge of the Church and its teachings, but not a lot of us are actually in love with it. There are lots of people who have a rudimentary knowledge of Jesus, but not a lot of us are actually in love with Him. Because knowledge is not enough.

Unless we move beyond just knowledge to love, our faith will never be fulfilled. It is through reason that we understand with the head. It is through prayer and contemplation and worship that we understand with the heart. If all you have is book learning then your faith has no motivation. If all you have is emotion, your faith has no roots. It is like the person Jesus said builds his house on sand. When trials and tribulations blow there is no conviction there to keep it from being torn down.

This fact is being borne out today. According to newly released General Social Survey data, the percentage of Americans who don’t affiliate with any specific religious tradition is now roughly the same as those who identify as evangelical or Catholic. About 23% of Americans claim to be Catholic, and Americans claiming “no religion” now represent about 23.1 percent of the population, up from 21.6 percent in 2016. The key finding is that these people are leaving not to join another church community, but to leave and profess nothing. And the losses are coming from the mainline Christian churches, of which the Catholic Church is the largest.

People don’t leave what they love.

Just like there are stages of grief, there are stages of love. And the woman at the well goes through all of them. This seems almost like a sparring match, sort of like an old Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie. There’s a chemistry between Jesus and the woman, a reaching out, a pushing back, and gradually the woman comes closer to Jesus who is calling her to conversion.

First there is a connection. Sometimes it’s a strong attraction and sometimes it’s tentative. This is followed by a mutual give and take where both people reveal things about themselves over time. This either leads to a stronger attraction and more revelation that leads to knowledge of the other, and a growing sense of trust. Only after trust is established can love truly happen.

The woman at the well came to love Jesus only after he “told me everything I have ever done”. But that was not what turned her heart. Everyone in her village knew her past. It was the fact that even though he had such intimate knowledge of her and her life, he did not judge her for it like her neighbors did. Instead, he offered her eternal life. How liberating that must have felt for someone who felt so ostracized and worthless that she had to go to the well in the middle of the hot day, when no other people were expected to be there! Jesus gave her back her dignity. He spoke to her when he wasn’t supposed to. He conversed with her as an equal, without looking down on her. And he offered her himself, the life-giving water that would change her life forever.

And like anyone who has fallen in love, she ran and told everyone about it. She told her neighbors who had totally ostracized her that she had found the messiah, and she was compelled to bring them to him. How much courage that must have taken! But people in love do great acts of courage without thought sometimes, without considering the consequences.

We are all the woman at the well. We all have a past that includes things we aren’t particularly proud of. We all have sinned and have felt the worthlessness sin can bring. And we have all encountered Jesus in some way or other. Some of us have moved our relationship with him to another level, to the level of trust. Some of us have gone all the way to love. We have fallen in love with Jesus. And 23 percent of us have not and say we have no belief.

This morning we are celebrating the first scrutiny for our catechumens. There will be two more in the weeks to come. They’re not here to bare their souls to anyone, and we’re not here to scrutinize them. They have been scrutinizing themselves for a long time, and today we’re here to accept them as they are, just as Jesus accepts them for who they are. Just as he accepted the woman at the well.

We will share with them the statement of our beliefs. We will profess once again the truths that have been revealed to us by God himself, the truths that make us Christian, the truths that bind us together, the truths that lead us to love of God and of one another, the truths that lead us to eternal life.

The woman at the well was faithful to her understanding of her beliefs, but that alone would not ensure her salvation. It was not until she had a conversation with her God, one to one, face to face, did she begin to understand. And that conversation was brutal and honest. It brought into the light what had been going on in the darkness. We are all called by Jesus to that conversation. Our catechumens even more so. But that conversation should not be something to fear; it is necessary to remove the barriers we have set up to loving God. Just as we must move from knowledge to trust to love of God, we need to confront our own selves with all our imperfections, if we can allow ourselves to trust, if we can allow ourselves to be loved.