As a young man I was interested in becoming a teacher so I went to teachers’ training college, and being eager for knowledge I took every opportunity to improve myself.

Like in secondary school I learnt a lot about life and living. Here, however, my main objective was to learn how to teach and I remember well the lecturers informing us, the students, that in good pedagogy you go from the known to the unknown. In other words you do not start by preaching to your students but you find out what they know and you proceed from there.

I saw a similarity with this and this Sunday’s gospel reading. Jesus entered into conversation with the Samaritan woman by talking about what she knew. She was at the well so obviously she knew how to draw water. Jesus approaches her and says, “Give me a drink.”

It is the norm in school that teachers keep themselves apart from the students. There is even a staff room where the students may not enter without permission. There are some teachers, however, who are very close to the students and are so friendly that they can have an informal conversation with them.

At times this can take the student by surprise for the student knows that normally teachers think themselves superior to them. This does not hold true only for the school environment, but it is similar in the work place where the members of the administration think that they are superior to the rest of the staff and even have their own private room that the rest of the staff may not enter without authorisation. This same attitude is perpetrated in so many situations where people interface with one another.

It is no wonder that the Samaritan woman was surprised, so that when Jesus approached her she responded with: “What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?”

Once the conversation is initiated the good teacher knows how to continue. It is the time for the teacher to proceed from the known to the unknown. I remember the good teachers who were able to impart knowledge to me that is growing in me up to today.

There are many things I learnt in primary school, in secondary school, at training college, at university that have remained in me and are still guiding my life.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he tells the woman: “…anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.”

When you meet people like this in life, they are able to inspire you and cause you to reflect on your own life so much so that you begin to understand life and yourself much better, and this makes you yearn for more of what they have given. You say, “Give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water.”

It is such people, be they family members, friends, colleagues, peers whom we would like to stay with us. They make our life so meaningful that we do not want them to leave.

We are happy to talk about them to others and when these others have had an experience similar to yours, they are prompted to say: “Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he is really the saviour of the world.”

Lord, we thank you for those family members, friends, teachers and all whom we have encountered who were able to impart to us knowledge that has helped us in life. 

They have given us water that has turned into a spring inside of us, welling up to eternal life. We thank you for those wise sayings they have left with us. They were prophets who have helped us worship in spirit and truth.

Forgive us for the times when we refused to listen to those who were trying to help us. We were at times arrogant and believed that we did not need any water from anyone.

We thought that we could understand life without help from anyone; we prided ourselves in being superior and independent and thought we knew it all. We are sorry for displaying this attitude.

We ask you to send among us priests, religious, leaders, teachers, friends, family members, work colleagues who will give us living water that we will drink and we will never be thirsty again, because it will turn into a spring inside of us, welling up to eternal life.

Help us to recognise these prophets in our midst who will teach us that, “The hour will come - in fact it is here already – when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.” Amen.

Gospel Meditations for February are by Felix Edinborough a parishioner of St Anthony’s, Petit Valley.