HINDRANCES TO THE HEALING GRACE OF GOD

20260309 HINDRANCES TO THE HEALING GRACE OF GOD

 

 

09 March 2026, Monday, 3rd Week of Lent

First reading

2 Kings 5:1-15

There were many lepers in Israel, but only Naaman, the Syrian, was cured

Naaman, army commander to the king of Aram, was a man who enjoyed his master’s respect and favour, since through him the Lord had granted victory to the Aramaeans. But the man was a leper.

  Now on one of their raids, the Aramaeans had carried off from the land of Israel a little girl who had become a servant of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my master would approach the prophet of Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.’ 

  Naaman went and told his master. ‘This and this’ he reported ‘is what the girl from the land of Israel said.’ 

  ‘Go by all means,’ said the king of Aram ‘I will send a letter to the king of Israel.’ 

  So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten festal robes. He presented the letter to the king of Israel. It read: ‘With this letter, I am sending my servant Naaman to you for you to cure him of his leprosy.’ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his garments. ‘Am I a god to give death and life,’ he said ‘that he sends a man to me and asks me to cure him of his leprosy? Listen to this, and take note of it and see how he intends to pick a quarrel with me.’

  When Elisha heard that the king of Israel had torn his garments, he sent word to the king, ‘Why did you tear your garments? Let him come to me, and he will find there is a prophet in Israel.’ 

  So Naaman came with his team and chariot and drew up at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent him a messenger to say, ‘Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will become clean once more.’

  But Naaman was indignant and went off, saying, ‘Here was I thinking he would be sure to come out to me, and stand there, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot and cure the leprous part. Surely Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, are better than any water in Israel? Could I not bathe in them and become clean?’ And he turned round and went off in a rage. 

  But his servants approached him and said, ‘My father, if the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? All the more reason, then, when he says to you, “Bathe, and you will become clean.”’

  So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, as Elisha had told him to do. And his flesh became clean once more like the flesh of a little child.

  Returning to Elisha with his whole escort, he went in and stood before him. ‘Now I know’ he said ‘that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.’

How to listen

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Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 41(42):2-3,42:3-4

My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God?

Like the deer that yearns

  for running streams,

so my soul is yearning

  for you, my God.

My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God?

My soul is thirsting for God,

  the God of my life;

when can I enter and see

  the face of God?

My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God?

O send forth your light and your truth;

  let these be my guide.

Let them bring me to your holy mountain,

  to the place where you dwell.

My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God?

And I will come to the altar of God,

  the God of my joy.

My redeemer, I will thank you on the harp,

  O God, my God.

My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God?

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Gospel Acclamation

2Co6:2

Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!

Now is the favourable time:

this is the day of salvation.

Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!

Or:	cf.Ps129:5,7

Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!

My soul is waiting for the Lord,

I count on his word,

because with the Lord there is mercy

and fullness of redemption.

Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!

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Gospel

Luke 4:24-30

No prophet is ever accepted in his own country

Jesus came to Nazara and spoke to the people in the synagogue: ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.

  ‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’

  When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.

 

HINDRANCES TO THE HEALING GRACE OF GOD

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SCRIPTURE READINGS: [2 KGS 5:1-15; PS 42:2-4; LK 4:24-30]

The season of Lent is indeed a season of grace.  The Church wants us to be fully receptive to His grace, which is offered to all, regardless of nationality, race, religion, or status in life.  He wants to heal us all – body, mind, and soul.

So what is preventing us from receiving His grace?  This is the spiritual lesson the Church wants to teach us as we enter the last week of the first half of Lent, which focuses on spiritual growth.   The primary obstacles to grace are pride and self-will.   For this reason, the healing of the body must always be preceded by the healing of the mind and the heart – especially from pride and from a disordered and stubborn will.

In the first reading, we meet Naaman, the proud and mighty army commander of ancient Syria.   He was struck with leprosy, and we can be sure it must have been a most humbling experience for him.  Everyone was under his command save the king.  He was the second most powerful person in the country, yet in the face of a terminal and tragic illness, he was helpless and powerless.

As if this was not humbling enough, he was told to seek help from the Jews whom he had conquered – from a slave girl to Naaman’s wife.  The last straw was when Elisha refused to meet him personally and instead sent word for him to go to the River Jordan and bathe himself seven times.  Because of his pride, he initially did not want to stoop so low as to do what he had been advised.

His pride and self-will wanted to dictate how things should be done.  After all, he was the commander. He was used to giving orders, not receiving them.  He thought money could solve the problem.  Hence, “taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten festal robes, he presented the letter to the king of Israel.”   Of course, as the King of Israel admitted, “Am I a god to give death and life that he sends a man to me and asks me to cure him of his leprosy?”

And when he was sent to the prophet, he was angry that Elisha did not receive him personally.  Instead, Elisha sent a messenger to say, “Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will become clean once more.”  We read that “Naaman was indignant and went off in rage, saying, ‘Here was I thinking he would be sure to come out to me, and stand there, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot and cure the leprous part.  Surely Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, are better than any water in Israel? Could I not bathe in them and become clean?'”

This same pride was manifested in the contemporaries of Jesus.  They could not accept how a young man who was one of them could preach with such authority.  They could not believe that Jesus could perform miracles.  They had no faith in Him. just as Naaman initially had no faith in the prophet.  It was too humiliating for them to recognise that the boy Jesus who had grown up among them had now become a man with a divine mission.  Their minds were closed, and their pride blinded them to the truth.  Indeed, they were enraged and reacted violently.  “They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff.”  Consequently, no miracles could be performed among them.

Fortunately, Naaman was encouraged by his servants to humble himself before the power of God.  They reasoned with him, saying, “My father, if the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?”

St James wrote, “But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’  Submit yourselves therefore to God.”  (Jas 4:6f) In the same vein, St Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”  (1 Pet 5:6)

Truly, the gateway to faith is humility.  Only those who have the humility to believe can be healed by the Lord.  For this reason, the healing of the mind and heart always precedes the healing of the body.  It is the soul – the mind and the heart – that needs healing.  Otherwise, without an open mind and a humble heart, there is no way for the grace of God to enter.  Pride and self-will make us think that we can dictate to God how and what should be done.  Faith, however, is the total surrender to divine wisdom and providence, trusting that whatever happens is always for our good.  But this requires humility.

Naaman eventually humbled himself, and he was healed.  “Returning to Elisha with his whole escort, he went in and stood before him.  ‘Now I know’ he said ‘that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.'”

Indeed, the healing of Naaman, as understood by the Fathers of the Church, is a foreshadowing of Christian baptism.  Leprosy, a skin disease where the flesh is gradually eaten away, is a symbol of sin eating into us each day.  Just as Naaman was cleansed of leprosy by washing himself in the River Jordan, so too we are cleansed of our sins at baptism, for Jesus Himself was baptised in the River Jordon.

What is essential for baptism is faith in the Lord Jesus, which brings about the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the mind and heart, leading to the restoration of the whole person.  Like Naaman, whose flesh “became clean once more like the flesh of a little child”, we too are restored to the innocence that humanity had before the fall of Adam and Eve. In baptism, we become a new creation and God’s children in Christ.

So, during this season of Lent, the liturgy invites us to turn back to God and stop relying solely on ourselves.  We must seek Him and be reconciled with Him so that He can take charge of our lives. Through repentance and forgiveness, we can once again hear the Word of God and His voice in our hearts.  With the psalmist we pray, “Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life: when can I enter and see the face of God? O Send forth your light and your truth; let these be my guide. Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.”

Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections

• Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
• Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
• It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.

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Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.

SEEKING FOR LIVING WATER

20260308 SEEKING FOR LIVING WATER

 

 

08 March 2026, 3rd Sunday of Lent

First reading

Exodus 17:3-7

Strike the rock, and water will flow from it

Tormented by thirst, the people complained against Moses. ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt?’ they said. ‘Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?’

  Moses appealed to the Lord. ‘How am I to deal with this people?” he said. ‘A little more and they will stone me!’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take with you some of the elders of Israel and move on to the forefront of the people; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river, and go. I shall be standing before you there on the rock, at Horeb. You must strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink.’ This is what Moses did, in the sight of the elders of Israel. The place was named Massah and Meribah because of the grumbling of the sons of Israel and because they put the Lord to the test by saying, ‘Is the Lord with us, or not?’

How to listen

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Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 94(95):1-2,6-9

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;

  hail the rock who saves us.

Let us come before him, giving thanks,

  with songs let us hail the Lord.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come in; let us bow and bend low;

  let us kneel before the God who made us:

for he is our God and we

  the people who belong to his pasture,

  the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

O that today you would listen to his voice!

  ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

  as on that day at Massah in the desert

when your fathers put me to the test;

  when they tried me, though they saw my work.’

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

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Second reading

Romans 5:1-2,5-8

The love of God has been poured into our hearts

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory. And this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man – though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die – but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

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Gospel Acclamation

Jn4:42,15

Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

Lord, you are really the saviour of the world:

give me the living water, so that I may never get thirsty.

Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

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Gospel

John 4:5-42

A spring of water welling up to eternal life

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 woman 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.’ ‘Go and call your husband’ said Jesus to her ‘and come back here.’ The woman answered, ‘I have no husband.’ He said to her, ‘You are right to say, “I have no husband”; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.’ ‘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 is the 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.’

  At this point his disciples returned, and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, ‘What do you want from her?’ or, ‘Why are you talking to her?’ The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people. ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?’ This brought people out of the town and they started walking towards him.

  Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, do have something to eat; but he said, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples asked one another, ‘Has someone been bringing him food?’ But Jesus said:

‘My food is to do the will of the one who sent me,

and to complete his work.

Have you not got a saying:

Four months and then the harvest?

Well, I tell you:

Look around you, look at the fields;

already they are white, ready for harvest!

Already the reaper is being paid his wages,

already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life,

and thus sower and reaper rejoice together.

For here the proverb holds good:

one sows, another reaps;

I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for.

Others worked for it;

and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.’

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.’

 

SEEKING FOR LIVING WATER

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SCRIPTURE READINGS: [EX 17:3-7; PS 95; ROM 5:1-2,5-8; JN 4:5-42]

As we enter into the Third Sunday of Lent, the Church begins the final preparations for those who will be baptised at the Easter Vigil.  These rites are celebrated on the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent, also known as the Period of Purification and Enlightenment.  The purpose of these rites is to uncover and heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the Elect through prayers of exorcism, intercessions, and the laying on of hands. Today marks the First Scrutiny for the Elect, in which the Church points them to Jesus as the Living Water.  Hence, the Gospel text is taken from John, introducing the Samaritan woman at the well.

This Gospel text is very rich in meaning and reveals the deepest desire of every human person.  Just like the Hebrews wandering in the desert on their journey to the Promised Land, we seek what is most essential in life. In the First Reading, water is shown to be critical to life.  We can survive for a few days without food, but without water, we will die.

Tormented by thirst, the people complained against Moses, asking, “‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt?’ they said, ‘Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?'”  While we can appreciate their frustration, the truth remains: they were never satisfied.  From water, they would later complain about the lack of fresh vegetables and, most of all, meat.  They grew bored with manna.

This is true for all of us.  We are never satisfied with what we have in life, no matter how much we have – including those who are rich and have everything that money can buy.  Without God, we will always lack fulfilment; as St Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until we rest in God.”  Without God, we cannot attain the fulness of life, joy, and love.

In the Gospel, the Samaritan woman went to Jacob’s well to draw water, which was more than two kilometres away from the town of Sychar.  She was fulfilling her basic needs, yet her life was empty.  She went there to draw water – instead of using the well in her town – to avoid meeting the townsfolk, as she was considered a lady of ill-repute. As we later learn, she had a few failed relationships, and Jesus exposed these wounds: “You are right to say, ‘I have no husband’; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband.”  Broken by these failures, she went through life each day without meaning or purpose.   This is true for many of us who suffer from failed relationships – whether in marriage, friendships, or at work.   Some of us may even feel like failures because we are not successful, or rich, or famous.

To all of us, Jesus comes to give living water.  He comes to fulfil us and quench our thirst.  It is significant that Jesus was sitting at the well at noon.  The Evangelist John uses symbolism to convey meanings and themes; night to represent evil and emptiness, and in this instance, noon to represent the bright light of truth and liberation.

Next Sunday, at the Second Scrutiny, the Gospel will focus on Jesus as the Light of the World. What is most consoling for us is that Jesus’ thirst is more than just a physical need; He thirsts for our happiness.  This is why Jesus told the woman, “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.”

He says it again at the Temple on the Feast of Tabernacles, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.'”  (Jn 7:37f) And just before He died, He repeats on the cross, saying, “I am thirsty.”  (Jn 19:28) So Jesus was not just physically thirsty – He desires to give us the Living Water.

What is this living water?  The Lord said to the woman, “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.”  So this living water not only quenches our thirst but becomes a spring within us, enabling us to provide water to others.

What could this be if not the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God that is poured into our hearts?  When we have love, that love grows.  The more we give love away, the more we grow in the capacity to love.  This is what St Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “This hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.”  And this Holy Spirit of course was given to us in principle at the cross.  At the moment of His death, St John wrote: “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished. Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”  (Jn 19:30)

This is why the episode of the Samaritan woman is chosen to prepare our Elect for the Sacrament of baptism at the Easter Vigil.  Through baptism, they will be washed with water and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, the waters of baptism can become true channels of God’s grace only because of Christ’s death and resurrection.  The Holy Spirit was given to the Church at the moment of Christ’s death on the cross, but this gift became fully manifest after the Resurrection, when Jesus bestowed the Spirit upon the apostles.  In the same way, it is only when we are baptised in Christ Jesus that the Holy Spirit is given to us and comes to dwell in us.  As St Paul says, “It is not easy to die even for a good man – though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die – but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

Indeed, when we welcome Jesus into our lives, He not only gives us His love, but He reveals the truth about us.  Just as He revealed to the woman the obstacles that prevented her from finding life, and showed her what is real worship in spirit and truth, she was set free from her fears and ignorance.  Jesus answered the profound questions that many of us have chosen to ignore.  She discovered the true identity of Jesus as Prophet and Messiah.  From that moment on, she was able to break free from her past.  Coming to know Jesus is what will set us free.

This is why, for us to receive this love of God, we must be ready to leave our jug behind, like this woman did.  After meeting Jesus, “the woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?'”  We must be ready to leave our sins, our fears and our past behind if we are to receive this living water.  As St Augustine reminds us, if we want God to fill us with new wine, then we need to cleanse our jug of the old substance.  So we need to decide today to leave our sins behind us.  From now on, we must be like Jesus, seeking only to do the will of God.  Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.”

We need not fear that God will reject us.  Indeed, the Gospel tells us that Jesus overcomes all barriers of hostility and prejudice that exist between us and Him.  He reached out to the woman, taking the initiative to begin a conversation and coming down to her level.  Jesus entered into an honest dialogue with the woman with great sensitivity.  He broke down all social and psychological barriers by speaking to a woman in public – against the social norms of the time – and drinking from the utensil of a Samaritan, He also overcame all religious barriers. We, too, must come to our Lord like the Samaritan woman to experience the joy of liberation and the discovery of our true identity as the sons and daughters of God.

If we take courage, our lives will be radically transformed when we encounter God’s mercy in Christ.  Like the woman, we will be changed; we will run into the city and tell people of our extraordinary experience, becoming evangelisers for our Lord.  Indeed, “many Samaritans 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. 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.'”

Truly, every encounter with Jesus changes life.  When we meet Jesus, everything else becomes unimportant, like the water jar.  Only the love of God is all important.  So let us leave that interior water jar behind and seek Jesus, to rediscover our Lord and renew our love for Him.   This is what Christian witnessing and Christian life is all about – to enter into the joy of our Lord and share that joy with others.

Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections

• Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
• Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
• It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.

---

Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.