March 8, 2026
Brothers & Sisters in Christ,
The way of sin complicates our lives. The way of the Lord simplifies our lives.
A thirsty Jesus stops at a well in Samaria, just outside of one of the Samaritan towns. He may have been physically thirsty, but as the reading progresses it is obvious that he is thirsty for much more than water. He is thirsty for souls. Later on when he is hanging on the cross, he will say, “I thirst” but he rejects what is offered to him. He is thirsty for souls.
A thirsty Samaritan woman is at the well. She is there to draw water perhaps for washing, perhaps for cooking, certainly for drinking. She is thirsty, but she does not realize how thirsty she is. It is only after the dialogue with Jesus that she realizes how thirsty she really was. There she encounters Jesus, who tells her he can give her water that will well up to eternal life. He touches her soul which causes her to put down her jar and race to the town to tell people that she thinks she has met the Messiah. They could see that there was something different with her. They go to see Jesus and believe in Him not due to what the woman said, but in their own experience of meeting him.
The way of sin complicates our lives. The way of the Lord simplifies our lives. You can imagine how complicated the woman’s life was. She is not called a widow. She is a woman who has been married five times and now is living with a sixth guy who isn’t even her husband. She probably had a lot of children and maybe even had to ask herself which children belonged to which man. She was probably seen by other townspeople as a little better than a prostitute. She had to be in turmoil considering what her life had become. But now, with this Jesus, her life was simplified. The husbands and the live-in were no longer the focus of her life. She wanted the eternal life that was being offered to her. Suddenly, everything seemed simple. She melted. She accepted him and then became an evangelist. She ran to town to tell others about Jesus. They also were touched, first by what she had said, and then, far more thoroughly by what the Lord himself said to each of them as he penetrated their lives.
The way of sin complicates our lives. The way of the Lord simplifies our lives.
A person is a liar and a thief. He uses his prowess in business to cheat others. He is always on the defensive, claiming that he did not lie, did not cheat, and then claiming that what he did was no different than what everyone else was doing. “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” (From The plat Marion by Sir Walter Scott)
A married person gets into an improper relationship with someone. She has to hide this relationship from her family. Both the spouse and the third person are tying up her emotions into a knot. She never thought her life could be so complicated. That is what sin does.
There are many examples of people who have thrown themselves into emotional turmoil by giving in to sin. There are also many more examples of people who have found peace in their lives through their determination to live the way of the Lord.
The way of the Lord is the way of simplicity, of living a simple life.
When we think of simplicity among the saints, we naturally think of St. Francis of Assisi. He had been a soldier and was even held as a prisoner of war for a brief time. He joined in with the wild bachelor scene of his day. His father had made plans for him to take over his successful textile business. Francis was aware of the turmoil of his time that he was expected to embrace. But then God called, and Francis listened. In that famous scene in the main square or piazza in Assisi where Francis stripped naked and gave all his beautiful clothes back to his father, he did not just embrace poverty. He embraced the simple life of Jesus Christ. He learned to enjoy the presence of God in the beauties of nature. He led others away from the noise of his society to Jesus Christ. Divine Simplicity led him to pray, “Make me an instrument of your peace.”
We all know many people who refuse to let their lives be complicated by everything happening around them or even to them. These are the people who are at peace. We want to be like them. We need to be like them.
God provides all good things for his people. But we should want to share in his goodness. Our eternal thirst cannot be quenched unless we are willing to drink the living water of Jesus’ life. Evil cannot be conquered unless we want to conquer it. Yes, the first step to conversion is made by God who meets us at the wells of our lives and calls us to living water, but the second step to conversion is made by us who must respond by changing our lives. This conversion is a process. We spend time during Lent looking into our lives and purifying ourselves of the obstacles which prevent us from enjoying the living water. We need to quench our eternal thirst. We consider how sin has complicated our lives. We seek simplicity. We seek forgiveness. We seek the Lord.
We have many opportunities to receive the sacrament of penance during Lent. The Lord gave us this sacrament to help us simplify our lives.
The way of sin complicates our lives. The way of the Lord simplifies our lives. May we have the courage to step away from the turmoil. May we have the determination to live in Divine Simplicity, to live in the peace of the Lord.
Peace,
Fr. Steve