Prayer connects God’s thirst for us with our thirst for God

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are concrete spiritual practices that mark our journey of Lent. Fasting engages our relationship to food, drink and material possessions that may control our lives.

Rita Of Cascia

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Born near Spoleto, Italy, Rita wanted to be a nun but married in deference to her parents. For nearly 20 years, she endured her profligate husband’s mistreatment.

Following his violent death, she was admitted after three refusals to an Augustinian convent at Cascia, where she spent the next 40 years. She is remembered for her devoted care of sick nuns and for a deep forehead wound that lasted 15 years, caused she said by a thorn from Christ’s crown of thorns. She has a large popular following and is invoked in Italy for difficult situations.

Almsgiving draws us out of ourselves to walk with compassion and solidarity with the needy, the wounded and marginalized around us. And prayer engages the deepest recesses of our interior life. As we strive to fast and act with justice for the good of the poor, Lent is the perfect time to reflect on our understanding of prayer and its power in daily life.

We might be surprised to learn that the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes

Jem Sullivan

Sullivan is a professor at The Catholic University of America.

prayer as God’s thirst for us and our thirst for God. This description invites a new perspective on prayer seen first within God’s desire for us and our desire for God. We are freed up to experience prayer not as an obligation or burden, but as a daily spiritual lifeline and gift of God’s grace that enriches life.

“If you knew the gift of God!” states the catechism. “The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water; there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depth of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.” (2560)

In Sunday’s first reading from Exodus, Moses strikes the rock in Horeb to give water to satisfy the people’s thirst. The Israelites had grumbled and questioned, “Is the

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The work of journalists is to listen and convey the truth of what was really said, Pope Francis told a Catholic weekly magazine.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank, through you, all journalists for their work.

It is a noble profession: to convey the truth,” he said in

Lord in our midst or not?” At times, our words of prayer may share the attitudes of the Israelites. Moses turned his gaze to the Lord and prayed that the people will recognize God’s providential, generous care for them. God thirsts for their freedom from oppression and walks with them every step of their exodus from slavery.

Jesus’ encounter becomes for the Samaritan woman at the well a profoundly lifechanging experience. At every Eucharist, we are invited also to the same encounter with Jesus who desires to meet our spiritual longings with the gift of his body and blood. Notice that the Samaritan woman comes to the well at noon, the an interview with Tertio, a Belgiumbased Dutch-language publication.

The lengthy interview, which took place Dec. 19, 2022, in Spanish, was published online in Dutch at: tertio. be on Feb. 28; the Vatican newspaper published an Italian translation of the interview the same day.

The pope said the tasks of a journalist are “listening, translating and dissemination” with listening being hottest time of the day. She was an outcast in her community, but Jesus thirsted for her faith as he promised her living water. As she wondered where she might find this living water, Jesus says to her, and to us, “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.”

Lent is the graced time to quench our spiritual thirst by drinking deeply of the living water of God’s word and sacrament. May we join the psalmist in kneeling before the Lord who made us as we pray, “Speak to me, Lord.” the key first step.

“There are journalists who are brilliant because they say clearly, ‘I listened, he said this, even though I think the opposite,’” he said. “You should not say, ‘He said this,’” when that was not what was said.

“Listen, report the message and then criticize. Journalists are doing a tremendous job,” he said.