If we are to be faithful to the Gospel, we must go out to the “Samarias” of our world and accompany those on the margins with compassion and courage.

Today’s readings are centered on Baptism and new life. Living Water represents God’s Holy Spirit Who comes to us in Baptism, penetrating every aspect of our lives and quenching our spiritual thirst. The Holy Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the Sacraments of God in the Church are the primary sources of the living water of Divine Grace.

We are to drink this water of eternal life and salvation. During our Baptism, this water washed away the stain of original sin, renewed by its abundance at each Eucharist, invited to it in every proclamation of the Word, and daily empowered by the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

As Catholics, as Christians, we are challenged by today’s Gospel to remain thirsty for the living water, which only God can give.

We can see in the first reading how God provided water to the ungrateful complainers of Israel, thus placing Jesus’s promise within the context of the Exodus account of water coming from the rock at Horeb.

Water also reminds us that our hardened hearts need to be softened by God through our grace-prompted, grace-assisted prayer, fasting and works of mercy, which enable us to receive the living water of the Holy Spirit, salvation, and eternal life from the Rock of our salvation.

Saint Paul asserts that, as the Savior of mankind, Jesus poured the living water in the gift of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. In the Gospel, an unclean, ostracized Samaritan woman is given an opportunity to receive the living water. Jesus awakened in the woman at the well a thirst for the wholeness and integrity which she had lost, a thirst that he had come to satisfy. This Gospel passage also gives us Jesus’s revelation about himself as the Source of Living Water and teaches us that we need the grace of Jesus Christ for eternal life because Jesus is that life-giving water.

We need to allow Jesus to enter freely into our personal lives. Jesus wishes to come into our “private” life, not to embarrass us, not to judge or condemn us, but to free us.

Now that there is a war in the Middle East, it is certainly timely to look again at the impact on the country of having US military bases.

Back in 2024, many political analysts and groups urged the removal of the nine Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement military bases in the country.

Political analysts say there is a need to remove the foreign military bases for peace in the country and to have a truly independent foreign policy.

As a Filipino observer, I say that the issue and strategic implications of having foreign military bases in the Philippines must be addressed, especially now that our national security is at risk.