We are inclined not to pay any attention to them. The things of real importance cannot be seen, felt, nor touched. Minute enquiries are made every particular feature is closely scrutinized and all this for a benefit which is often uncertain and at all times transitory. See how men plan and look ahead when they are in quest of some mountain clime or seaside air where they are anxious to spend a few fleeting days in search of rest and health. Perhaps you are consumed with anxiety and trouble, endlessly worrying about the affairs of this life, about health and pleasure, about getting on in the world, about money-making, and a thousand other things, with little or no concern about the one great thing of importance- namely, the love of God.
Our Bishops are like lonely shepherds in the wilderness, crying out for more shepherds to come and care for the sick lambs of the flock to carry them to the sheepfold of the Holy Church of God, of Him Who once sat weary beside the well.Īre you, kind reader, going through life without a definite aim or purpose? Are you led hither and thither by the impulses of every moment? He is speaking to you through the mouth of the Hierarchy. This thirst for souls came down from heaven with Him it lived with Him it ascended with Him into Heaven.Īre you doing anything, gentle reader, to slake His thirst for souls? Are you not more cruel than the Jews if, beholding Him languishing in His burning thirst for souls, you refuse Him the refreshment He requires of you? Think of those shipwrecked mariners who have died with tongue, lips, and mouth parched and dried from want of moisture! This, their physical thirst, when compared with Our Lord's thirst for souls, is as the drop put alongside the ocean. He is thirsting more feverishly for souls than He thirsted on that memorable day for water. Our Blessed Lord is still waiting, gentle reader. And so it was that He forgot both thirst and fatigue in His desire to convert the Samaritan woman whose arrival He was awaiting. It was ever His wish that the reign of hell and darkness should cease, and that this world should bring forth fruits of righteousness. It was ever His yearning to extirpate vice and sin from among men. But more anxiously was He awaiting someone else. True, He was awaiting the arrival of His Apostles. So He sat beside the well, awaiting the return of His Apostles and, as He looked down at the water below, He must have longed in His thirst for a draught of that element which He had created. He was subject to human infirmities, human hardships. He needed rest, it is true, because, like us, He felt the broiling heat and the dusty road. We read in Holy Scripture how 'Jesus therefore being weary with His journey, sat thus on the well (John iv, 6). GEARON, O.CARM., D.D., B.A.Īlthough the sky with God's handwriting upon it, the trees and flowers, rivers and lakes, the fields laden with the gifts of God-although these things are sufficient to keep the thought of Our Lord before you, still it is necessary, gentle reader, from time to time for you to enter into the quiet seclusion of your heart, to turn aside from the cares of everyday life, from the noisy bustle of the world, and to consider how you stand in the great business of salvation.
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