Friday in the Third Week of Lent
Prayer.
LOOK down on our fasts, we beseech Thee, O Lord, with merciful favor, that, as we abstain from food in body, so we may fast from vice in mind. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, etc.
EPISTLE. Numbers xx. 2-13.
In those days, the children of Israel came together against Moses and Aaron: and making a sedition, they said: Would God we had perished among our brethren before the Lord. Why have you brought out the Church of the Lord into the wilderness, that both we and our cattle should die? Why have you made us come up out of Egypt, and have brought us into this wretched place which cannot be sowed, nor bringeth forth figs, nor vines, nor pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink ? And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord, and said : O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them Thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied they may cease to murmur. And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink. Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as He had commanded him. And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them : Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous : Can we bring you forth water out of this rock? And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron : Because you have not believed Me, to sanctify Me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land which I will give them. This is the water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and He was sanctified in them.
GOSPEL. John iv. 5-42.
At that time Jesus came to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar; near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob s well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith to her : Give Me to drink. For His disciples were gone into the city to buy meats. Then that Samaritan woman saith to Him : How dost Thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. Jesus answered, and said to her : If thou didst know the gift of God, and Who He is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink ; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. The woman saith to Him : Sir, Thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep : from whence then hast Thou living water ? Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered, and said to her : Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst forever: but the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting. The woman saith to Him : Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw. Jesus saith to her : Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered, and said : I have no husband. Jesus said to her : Thou hast said well, I have no husband : for thou hast had five husbands : and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly. The woman saith to him : Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore. Jesus saith to her : Woman, believe Me, that the hour cometh when you shall neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem adore the Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore Him. God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith to Him : I know that the Messias cometh (Who is called Christ) : therefore when He is come, He will tell us all things. Jesus saith to her: I am He Who am speaking with thee. And immediately His disciples came: and they wondered that He talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest Thou, or why talkest Thou with her? The woman therefore left her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there : Come, and see a man Who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not He the Christ?
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