Today, on the 5th Sunday of Pascha, we remember the encounter the Lord had with the Samaritan woman. Known to us as St. Photini or St. Svetlana, meaning “the enlightened one,” this woman’s life was changed when she met the Lord at the well in Samaria. She had lived a broken life, and had suffered terrible spiritual thirst. But Christ, when He asked her for a drink, knocked on the door of her soul, and, hearing Him knock, she answered. And He who had become man that He might suffer thirst for her and us, gave her, and us, the Water of Life.

This Sunday also coincides with the feast of Mid-Pentecost, which began this past Wednesday, and continues through this coming Wednesday. During this feast we sing: “At mid-feast give Thou my thirsty soul to drink of the waters of piety, for Thou O Savior didst cry out to all: Whosever is thirsty let him come to me and drink, wherefore O wellspring of life, Christ our God, glory to Thee!”

So on the one hand, we know that Christ offers us the water of life, the water of the Holy Spirit. He alone can quench our thirst. We human beings are always thirsting, always hungry for something. We’re always trying to satisfy that thirst and that hunger with something. The trouble is, we often try to satisfy it with something other than Christ, something other than the true water of life.

The Samaritan woman tried to do that with human lovers. She had one husband after another. Finally, she ended up living with a man who wasn’t her husband. She had no fulfillment, though, in all of that, and remained fundamentally empty and thirsty. Until she met Christ. Then she received the Living Water from Him. She finally found something satisfying in Him.

The disciples are hungry - it’s lunchtime when the Lord encountered the Samaritan woman - and so they go get some food. But when they return and offer some food to the Lord, he responds in a strange way. He says that he has food that they don’t know about. They wonder, what does He mean? And He explains that his food is to do the will of the Father and to finish His work. And what is the will and the work of the Father? To call us, and to save us, and to give us the Water of Life. So you could say that what the Lord hungers for is Communion - communion with the other Persons of the Trinity, and communion with us as well.

This is really our fundamental hunger and thirst as well. We have unquenchable thirst for God. We may seek to quench that thirst with many other things, things that have no chance of satisfying us. We have “many husbands” - that is, all those things that don’t satisfy us - but what we need is the true husband, the true bridegroom, Christ. What we need is true communion with God, which allows true communion, true connection, with one another.

Unfortunately, we can get stuck in the ruts of bad habits. And a longstanding habit of eating bad food can get us used to bad food. Just like someone who always eats processed foods full of sugar and additives might not appreciate a carrot or a leaf of lettuce straight from the garden, even though the latter is so much healthier, so we may get to the point where we lose a conscious awareness of our thirst for communion with God. We don’t even know what it is that we need.

Thankfully, He loves to remind us, because He loves us, and longs for that communion with us. And so here we are today, being reminded. He reminded St. Photini of her true hunger and thirst, and He reminds us through the Church, through this Sunday, with this particular commemoration. What we need is to go deeper in the life of Communion with Him…to take it more to heart, to be more deliberate about it, to put aside all the bad foods that we try to satisfy ourselves with, and to taste and see that He is good.

Since today is also Mother’s Day, it’s worth considering that the transformation in the life of St. Photini also transformed her as a mother. We know that she had at least two sons, called Josiah and Victor. And, along with her 5 sisters, and many other from her town in Samaria, those sons also became Christians. Not only that; they became martyrs along with St. Photini. And she became a spiritual mother to countless people as well.

Before she met Christ, it’s hard to say what kind of mother she was. Having had 5 husbands and living with another man, it’s likely that she was more consumed with filling that thirst, that void in her life, than with helping her children quench their spiritual thirst. But we know that when she met Christ, everything changed. She ended her life as a disciple, an Apostle, a martyr.

As an “enlightened one” she went out and preached the Gospel - shared the truth that had set her free and brought light into the darkness of her life - and she helped bring many people to faith in Christ. She was especially an evangelist in North Africa, and, shortly before her martyrdom, she even converted and baptized the daughter of Nero, the Roman Emperor. She was a model for her children. She gave them Christ. She died for Him and for them. So there’s no greater model of motherhood than what we see in her as she ended up.

Good motherhood, like good fatherhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, being a good child or friend, is all related to Christ and reflecting His love to others. As we turn from self-love to love for Christ, we become increasingly capable of genuine and sacrificial love for others.

We are thirsty and hungry people. Our deepest thirst and hunger, though, is for the living God and life in Him. May we learn to put aside other things that don’t satisfy, and to turn to Christ at each moment, saying “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Give me that living water that you alone can provide. Transform my life, granting me genuine love and true communion with you. Amen.”