3 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” John 4:34
Paul writes to Timothy as an old man near the end of his race, and his words have the weight of a last will: “I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” He knows what is coming: “the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.” Our age of endless voices, each telling us what we like to hear, is not new. Timothy must stay steady: “always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” And Paul himself is ready to give the last drop: “As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.”
In the Gospel the Samaritan woman has just met Jesus at the well. The disciples come back and are astonished that he is speaking with a woman. She, meanwhile, “left her water jar and went back to the city.” The jar she came for is forgotten; she has found living water. She says to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” The disciples urge Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something,” and he answers, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” They think someone has brought him lunch. He explains: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” Then he points to the Samaritans already walking toward him across the fields: “look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” One sows and another reaps. In Denha Christ is revealed even to the Samaritans, the outsiders, through a woman who simply said: come and see. We in Kerala reap what the apostle Thomas and many generations of priests, religious and catechists sowed. “Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Theme: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me.”
The apostle's last charge, the woman who left her water jar, and the harvest that others sowed.
“I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:8
“Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” John 4:34
Apply: Begin today by asking: Father, what is your will for me today?
“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.” Psalm 126:5
“Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” John 4:35
Apply: Invite one person who has drifted away to come with you to the Holy Qurbana.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”” Isaiah 52:7
“proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” 2 Timothy 4:2
Apply: Speak a word of faith this week where you would usually stay silent.
Christ is fed by the Father's will, and he feeds us so that we may do it too.
Leave your water jar, look at the fields, and proclaim him.
Take-home resolution: Thank and pray for those who first taught you the faith, and share it with one person this week.
Dear friends, Paul charges Timothy: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable (2 Timothy 4:2). People will look for teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear. But Timothy must do the work of an evangelist.
In the Gospel the Samaritan woman leaves her water jar and runs back to the city: come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! She came for water and found the Messiah.
The disciples urge Jesus to eat. He says: my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work (John 4:34). Then he shows them the fields ripe for harvesting.
We reap what others have sown: the apostle Thomas, our missionaries, our parents and catechists. Let us thank them, leave our water jars, and say to someone: come and see. Amen.
Children, a lady met Jesus at a well and was so happy that she forgot her water jar! She ran to tell everyone: come and see Jesus! Who can you tell about Jesus today?
Lord Jesus, at the well you gave living water to a woman who came only for water, and she ran to bring others to you. Make your Father's will our food, give us courage to proclaim your word in every season, and let us gather with joy the harvest that others have sown. Amen.
Two people carry the word today, in very different circumstances. An old apostle in chains hands on his charge: “proclaim the message”. A woman of Samaria, who came for water, leaves her jar at the well and runs to tell her town. Between them stands Jesus, who says that doing the Father’s will is his food, and that the harvest is already ripe. Denha shows Christ to the world, and the world still comes to know him through those who speak of him.
Setting.
This letter is presented as Paul’s last word, written from prison (1:8; 2:9) to Timothy, the younger co-worker he had taken on at Lystra (Acts 16:1–3). Many hold that Paul wrote it or that it rests on his own words; many scholars think that a disciple composed it in his name and spirit after his death. Either way the Church receives it as inspired Scripture, and it reads as a father’s farewell to his son in the faith.
The passage comes straight after the famous words on Scripture (3:16–17). The charge to preach follows from them.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” (4:2)
Three verbs, and only the middle one is harsh. All three are held inside “the utmost patience”. Correction without patience wounds, and patience without truth leaves people where they are.
“having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires” (4:3)
The danger described lies as much in the listeners as in the teachers. People go looking for voices that say what they already want to hear. The warning applies in every age, and to every side of every argument.
“As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.” (4:6)
“Departure” (analysis) was used of a ship slipping its moorings or a camp being taken down. Death is spoken of here as setting out, without fear.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council, cited by the Catechism, names preaching the Gospel as the first task of bishops, with priests as their co-workers (CCC 888). Lay people share the same mission by word and by the witness of life (CCC 905). St Paul VI wrote that people today listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if they listen to teachers it is because they are witnesses (Evangelii Nuntiandi 41). Verse 5, “endure suffering”, says the same thing in fewer words.
Setting.
We are at Jacob’s well near Sychar in Samaria, at about noon (4:5–6). The disciples had gone to buy food (4:8), and Jesus has been speaking with a Samaritan woman, to whom he has just said plainly that he is the Messiah (4:25–26). Jews and Samaritans had a long and bitter separation behind them (4:9). It was also not the custom for a teacher to hold such a conversation with a woman in public, which is why the disciples are astonished.
The reading has a double movement. The woman goes into the town while the disciples stay with Jesus and misunderstand him about food. Then the townspeople come out, and Jesus shows the disciples what they are seeing.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.” (4:28)
She does not argue or explain. The one who had come to the well at noon now goes to the people of her town, with her question.
““Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”” (4:29)
“Come and see” are the words of Philip to Nathanael (1:46). She does not claim to have all the answers. She tells what happened to her and asks a question, and that is enough to start them walking.
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” (4:34)
Jesus was tired and thirsty at the start of the chapter (4:6–7). He does not despise bread. He says that there is something he lives by even more.
“look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” (4:35)
The Greek says the fields are “white”. Perhaps at that very moment the people of the town are coming across the fields toward him. The harvest is not four months off. It is walking up the road.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism sees in this well the wonder of prayer itself: Christ comes to meet every human being, and “it is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink” (CCC 2560). It also teaches that in Christ’s human will the will of the Father was perfectly done (CCC 2824). St Augustine, in his homilies on John, takes the jar she left as a sign of worldly desire laid aside for the sake of living water (in substance). St John Chrysostom admires her as one who did the work of an apostle, drawing a whole town by her words (in substance).
Who are the “others” who have labored, in v. 38?
John does not say. Many readers think of the prophets and John the Baptist; Jesus himself has sown in this very conversation. Some scholars also see in it a look ahead to the later mission to Samaria (Acts 8). The point stays the same: no missionary starts from nothing, and every harvest depends on those who went before.