By Deborah Castellano Lubov
As Pope Francis recovers in his residence at the Casa Santa Marta after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Sunday, he has called on the faithful to never lose hope, for God always grants us the possibility of starting over.
The Pope did so in the text that had been prepared for the Wednesday General Audience, which he asked the Holy See Press Office to publish.
Since his medical team discharged the Pope calling for two months of rest for a proper convalescence, the Press Office continues to distribute the catecheses prepared for the Audience, as it did during his hospitalization.
In his catechesis, focusing on encounters in Jesus’ life, the Pope focused on the biblical episode of the Samaritan Woman recounted in the Gospel of St John.
At our ‘crossroads’
The Samaritan woman meets Jesus at a well, where He asks her for water and reveals that He is the Messiah. Through their conversation, He exposes her past and offers her “living water,” symbolizing eternal life. Transformed by this encounter, she leaves her water jar, runs to her village, and brings others to Jesus.
After contemplating the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, who went in search of Jesus, and the Samaritan woman, the Pope observed that we are reflecting on moments where Jesus shows that He is waiting “right there,” at that “crossroads” in our life.
He recognized how this could have been somewhat shocking for the Samaritan woman, who likely felt ashamed of her life. “Perhaps she felt judged, condemned, and not understood,” said the Pope, recalling that she had had five husbands and now was with a sixth who was not her husband.
To go to Galilee from Judea, he observed, Jesus would have had to choose another road and not pass through Samaria. Yet, Pope Francis marveled, “He wants to pass through there, and stops at that very well, right at that time!”
Jesus waiting when we’ve lost all hope
This, the Pope underscored, shows how “Jesus waits for us” and “lets Himself be found precisely when we think that there is no hope left for us.”
“He helps her to reread her history, which is complicated and painful,” the Pope said, recalling how she discovers that the Messiah loves her.
The Pope asked, “What proclamation could she have brought, if not her experience of being understood, welcomed, forgiven?” He added that this “should make us reflect on our search for new ways to evangelize.”
Leaves behind her troubled life
Just like a person in love, the Samaritan forgets her water jar, leaving it at Jesus’ feet. “The weight of that jar on her head, every time she returned home,” the Pope recognized, “reminded her of her condition, her troubled life. But now the jar is left at Jesus’ feet.”
At this point, he noted, “the past is no longer a burden; she is reconciled,” noting, “it is like this for us too.”
“To go and proclaim the Gospel,” the Holy Father said, “we first need to set down the burden of our history at the feet of the Lord, to consign to Him the weight of our past.”
“Dear brothers and dear sisters,” the Holy Father underscored, “let us not lose hope! Even if our history appears burdensome, complicated, perhaps even ruined to us, we always have the possibility of consigning it to God and setting out anew on our journey.”
Finally, Pope Francis concluded by reassuring, “God is merciful, and awaits us always!”
