For the Third Sunday of Lent, there’s this excerpt from the First Reading from today’s Mass (Exodus 17:3):

In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Was it just to have us die here of thirst
with our children and our livestock?”

Courtesy of USCCB

When I read that, it immediately struck me as a bunch of people on the verge of relapsing. Well, they were, in a way: they longed for the food security of Egypt, completely disregarding the slavery they experienced there. Dosn’t this sound like a relapse episode? You have been free of the practice of your addiction for some time now; enjoying to varying degress of success your new life. But something bad has happened. Your first major setback and now your new coping skills are lacking and you long for the false security and refuge of your formwr way of life. 

This invariably leads to the Gospel reading of John 4:5-42; also known as the “Woman at the Well” story. I will not show the entire reading here, since you should have gone to Mass, or you can just grab your Catholic Bible and read it at your convenience. But you probably know the story about how Jesus converts the sinful woman he found at the well of Jacob, as well as the village, by promising the “Living Water” of His Gospel and His future Church and Her sacraments.

There it is, right in front of you: two choices. If you are in danger of relapsing or you think you might be at risk in the future, the choices are stark. The “Dying Water” of your addiction versus the “Living Water” of the Gospel and the Church’s sacramental life. Lent is a time for reconnecting what you’ve either lost or become inattentive to. This is the theme of many Lenten social media posts and podcasts. Lent puts you back on the track of getting closer to Jesus. You can’t get closer than getting Him in the sacraments. The Eucharist is literally His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; Confession is literally coinfessing yur sins to Jesus (through a priest, but Jesus forgives your through that priest.)

Spend time in Church this Lent. Go the Mass on Sundays (it’s an obligation on the pain of mortal sin unless you have an unavoidable obstacle such as health, weather, or transportation issues) and even weekdays if possible. Go to Confession more often than you do outside of Lent. Read a good spiritual book.

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