The woman of Samaria is surprised to find a Jewish man at the well because Jews
avoided Samaritans. This well was traced by the local people to the patriarch Jacob.
Each day, the woman draws water from the well to quench her thirst.
Jesus initiates their discussion, telling her that He wants to give her “water.” If only she
recognized the gift that God wants to give her and who it is who is speaking with her,
she would have asked for this “gift,” which is “living water.”
St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the gifts of God require that we desire them and ask
for them:
Grace is not given to anyone without their asking and desiring it … in the
justification of a sinner an act of free will is necessary to detest sin, and to desire
grace, according to Matthew 7:7: ‘Ask and you will receive.’ Therefore, no one
who resists grace receives it, unless he first desires it; this is clear in the case of
Paul who, before he received grace, desired it, saying ‘Lord, what do You want
me to do?’ (Acts 9:16). (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 578).
Thomas explains how a comes to ask:
There are two things which lead a person to desire and ask for grace: a
knowledge of the good to be desired and a knowledge of the giver… He says, ‘If
you knew the gift of God,’ which is every desirable good that comes from the
Holy Spirit. And this is a gift of God … Secondly, He mentions the giver, and He
says, ‘and realized who it is who speaks to you,’ i.e., if you knew the one who
can give it, namely, that it is I (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 579).
As our concerns about ourselves and others emerge, desires form within us. We bring
those desires before the Lord and ask Him to grant them.
St. Augustine observes that we must identify ourselves with the woman’s daily drawing
water: “We must recognize ourselves in her words and in her person…” (Treatise on
John).
“Water,” like food, is one of our basic needs. Thomas notices that satisfying our needs
is often disappointing: “Before temporal things are possessed, they are highly regarded
and thought satisfying; but after they are possessed, they are found to be neither so
great as thought nor sufficient to satisfy our desires, and so our desires are not satisfied
but move on to something else” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 586).
Relationships with others are important but even the closest relationships cannot satisfy
all our needs. The woman has had five husbands and is living with another man.
Ultimately, she is looking for something more.

Thomas reflects that water is called “living” when it continually comes from its source,
as a fountain does. Thomas proposes that the “living water” that Jesus gives is “the
grace of the Holy Spirit” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 577).
Similar to water, grace “cleanses,” and brings “refreshing relief” and “satisfies our
desires, in contrast to our thirst for earthly things, and all temporal things whatever:
‘Come to the waters, all you who thirst’ (Is 55:1)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John,
577).
Grace is never separated from its source:
The grace of the holy Spirit is correctly called living water, because the grace of
the Holy Spirit is given to man in such a way that the source itself of the grace is
also given, that is, the Holy Spirit. Indeed, grace is given by the Holy Spirit: ‘The
love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been
given to us’ (Rom 5:5). For the Holy Spirit is the unfailing fountain from whom all
gifts of grace flow (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 577).
Because the Spirit is within us, the graces flow like living waters within us: “Spiritual
water has an eternal cause, that is, the Holy Spirit, who is an unfailing fountain of life.
accordingly, he who drinks of this will never thirst; just as someone who has within
himself a fountain of living water would never thirst” (Commentary on the Gospel of
John, 586).
Jesus declares that we will worship the Father in spirit and in truth:
And so when we pray, we ought to be such as God seeks. But God seeks those
who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, in the fervor of love and in the truth of
faith: ‘And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God want from you, but that you
fear the Lord your God and walk in His ways, and love Him and serve the Lord
your God with all your heart’ (Dt 10:12).
A breakthrough for the woman comes when Jesus discloses the woman’s history. She
concludes that He must be a prophet: “For it is characteristic of prophets to reveal what
is not present and hidden: ‘’He who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer’
(1 Sm 9:9)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 596).
The woman sets aside her water jar, in other words, living for temporal things: “The
water jar is a symbol of worldly desires, by which men draw out pleasures from the
depths of darkness – symbolized by the well – i.e. from a worldly manner of life.
Accordingly, those who abandon worldly desires for the sake of God leave their water
jars” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 625).
Jesus’ thirst and hunger for us:

According to Thomas, this Gospel tells us about Jesus’ thirst, which is for us: “He asks
for a drink both because He was thirsty for water on account of the heat of the day, and
because He thirsted for the salvation of man on account of His love. Accordingly, while
hanging on the cross, He cried out: ‘I thirst’” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 569).
The reason for the Incarnation was to bring us to God. The Nicene Creed affirms: “For
us and for our salvation.”
When the disciples return with food, Jesus doesn’t eat and explains to the disciples:
“Doing the will of Him who sent Me and bringing His work to completion is My food.”
Thomas reflects upon these words:
The food that Christ had to eat is the salvation of men: this was what He desired.
When He says that He has food to eat, He shows how great a desire He has for
our salvation. For just as we desire to eat when we are hungry, so He desires to
save us: ‘My delight is to be with the children of men’ (Prv 8:31). So, He says, I
have food to eat, i.e. the conversion of the nations, ‘of which you do not know’;
for they had no way of knowing beforehand about his conversion of the nations
(Commentary on the Gospel of John, 634).
Thomas elaborates: “The sense is this: My food is, i.e., in this is my strength and
nourishment, to do the will of Him who sent Me; according to ‘My God, I desired to do
Your will, and Your law is within My heart’ (Ps 39:9), and ‘I came down from heaven not
to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me’ (Jn 6:38).”
Thomas refers to Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to describe the extent to which Jesus
went to draw us to the Father:
This work of the Lord needed to be repaired in order to become right again; and
this was accomplished by Christ, for ‘Just as by the disobedience of one man,
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man, many will be made
just’ (Rom 5:19). Thus, Christ says, to accomplish His work, to bring men back to
what is perfect (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 643).
Thomas recognizes that the woman comes to share in Jesus’ thirst: “The woman left
her water jar and went off to the town, to tell of the wonderful things Christ had done;
and she was not now concerned for her own bodily comfort but for the welfare of others.
In this respect, she was like the apostles, who ‘leaving their nets, followed the Lord’ (Mt
4:20)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 625).
Thomas observes:
Next we see her manner of preaching (v. 29). She first invites them to see Christ,
saying, ‘Come and see the man …’ Neither did she say, ‘believe,’ but ‘Come and
see; for she was convinced that if they were to taste from the well by seeing Him,

they would be affected in the same way she was: ‘Come and I will tell you the
great things He has done for me’ (Ps 65:16). In this, she is imitating the example
of a true preacher, not calling men to himself, but to Christ: ‘What we preach is
not ourselves, but Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 4:5) (Commentary on the Gospel of John,
626).
Thomas remarks on the effect of her witness:
Many Samaritans of that town, to which the woman had returned, believed in
Him, and this, on the testimony of the woman from whom Christ asked for a drink
of water, who said, ‘He told me everything I ever did’: for this testimony was
sufficient inducement to believe Christ. For since Christ had disclosed her
failures, she would not have mentioned them if she had not been brought to
believe. And so the Samaritans believed as soon as they heard her. This
indicates that faith comes by hearing (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 657).
Secondly, the fruit of her witness is shown in their coming to Christ: for faith gives
rise to a desire for the thing believed. Accordingly, after they believed, they came
to Christ, to be perfected by Him. So, he says, ‘When the Samaritans came to
Him.’
Thirdly, the fruit of her witness is shown in their desire: for a believer must not
only come to Christ, but desire that Christ remain with him. So he says, ‘They
begged Him to stay with them awhile.’ So He stayed there two days.
They came to realize that Jesus was their savior: “…this woman was a symbol of the
Church of the Gentiles; and Christ sought the Gentiles, for He came ‘to seek and to
save what was lost’ (Lk 19:10)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 622).
The people proclaim Jesus as Savior of the world: “They affirm that He is the universal
Savior, because he is not just for some, i.e. for the Jews alone, but is the ‘Savior of the
world.’ “God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world
might be saved through Him’ (Jn 3:17) (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 663).
Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.
The quotations are from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John,
trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Larcher, O.P. (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980, pp.
229-267).