Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thoughts on the Rule: Friday after the Third Sunday of Lent

Friday after the 3rd Sunday of Lent
Station at St Laurence in Lucina

The Samaritan Woman

1. The Station is at the titulus of Lucina, in whose memory is read today the moving story of the first woman converted by Jesus in the capital of Samaria.

The Redeemer offers the thirsting soul water springing and gushing forth which, quenching every worldly thirst, lifts up the soul to eternal life, like the impetuous gushing of a fountain: Ego sitienti dabo de fonte aquae vitae gratis. (Apoc 21:6: ‘I will give without cost from the fount of the water of life to him who is thirsting.’) The grace, however, is not granted to all, but only: sitienti [to the one who thirsts]. He who is disgusted at the heavenly food and drink will not have anything.

Saint Benedict describes this interior hunger and thirst for God in the Chapter on the instruments of good works: Vitam aeternam omni concupiscentia spiritali desiderare (Rule, Ch. 4: ‘To desire eternal life with all intensity of affection.’) Here, vitam aeternam stands in general for interior life, life of union with God in Christ Jesus.

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2. In catechising the Samaritan woman, the Saviour comes to speak of the character of Christian worship, in contrast to the liturgy of the Israelites. ‘The true adorers adore the Father in Spirit and in truth.’

The supreme aim of the Church is the perfect adoration of God, one and Triune, especially by means of the sacred Liturgy, in which it is the Church herself who prays, more than the individual.

Of the ancient Benedictine abbeys, Dante sang that they were accustomed to be consecrated a sola latria [to adoration alone]. Today it is easily happens that the world considers this a useless life. Not so was the thought of the Middle Ages, which well understood the primacy of the spiritual, and judged contemplation as the peak of human activity.

The Father is adored in the truth of Catholic revelation.

He therefore who distances himself from the symbol of faith [the Creed] preached by the Church, no longer adores the Father in truth.

But this same adoration of the Father in truth must likewise be carried out in Spiritu, in communion, that is, with the Catholic Church, in which: Spiritus orat gemitibus inenarrabilibus. (Rom 8:26: ‘It is the Spirit Who prays in the Church with unspeakable groans.’)

Outside the Church there is not prayer, properly speaking, nor adoration in Spiritu.¹

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3. Jesus encourages His Disciples to the apostolate, pointing His finger and indicating with His hand the immense regions where the harvests are already turning white.

Pessimism in the sacred ministry is one of the worst temptations.

The Blood of Christ has already made fertile the field of the Church; so that the ground is never barren. The seed which we must scatter is the very Word of God, which must regenerate new sons for the Lord. Hence, a fruitful seed, because it is divine.

At times, human enterprises of the apostolate will not perhaps have an immediate happy result, because grace, and miracles too, have their hour fixed beforehand by the Father’s Providence.

Thus Jesus responds at the wedding of Cana: Nondum venit hora mea. One may also speak likewise of the fruits of the Catholic apostolate. The hours of the day, observes the Lord, are twelve.

Our duty, therefore, is to wait and to pray, with hope and joy. The harvest will mature when the opportune season arrives. The grain is sown in October and matures in June.

What is important is not to become melancholy. Ut, et qui seminat simul gaudeat et qui metit. (John 4:36: ‘So that both the sower and the reaper may feast together.’)

For this reason Saint Benedict writes: Ut nemo perturbetur neque contristetur in domo Dei. (Rule Ch. 31: ‘That no one may be distressed or saddened in the house of God.’)

¹ As an act of the natural virtue of religion, prayer can be performed even by those outside the Church; Blessed Schuster’s meaning is probably that the public worship of God in the Sacred Liturgy is only legitimately carried out in the Church founded by Christ. The prayer of Christians who through no fault of their own are ignorant of the true nature of the Church may be considered to be united to the Church’s prayer by an implicit desire.–Tr.