Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Day 6

DAY 6 

A prayer resource from The World Council of Churches.

TESTIMONY

Jesus said : “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14)

• Exodus 2:15-22 Moses at the well of Midian
• Psalm 91 The song of those who take refuge in the Lord
• 1 John 4:16-21 Perfect love casts out fear
• John 4:11-15 “A spring of water welling up to eternal life”

Commentary

The dialogue that begins with Jesus asking for water becomes a dialogue in which Jesus promises water. Later in this same gospel Jesus will again ask for a drink. “I thirst,” he says from the cross, and from the cross Jesus becomes the promised fountain of water which flows from his pierced side. We receive this water, this life from Jesus, in baptism, and it becomes a water, a life that wells up within us to be given and shared with others.

Here is the witness of a Brazilian woman who has drunk from this water and in whom this water becomes a spring: Sister Romi, a nurse from Campo Grande, was a pastor in the Pentecostal tradition.

One Sunday night, all alone in a shack, in Romi’s neighbourhood a sixteen year old indigenous girl called Semei gave birth to a baby boy. She was found lying on the floor and bleeding. Sister Romi took her to the hospital. Enquiries were made – where was Semei’s family? They were found, but they did not want to know.

Semei and her child had no home to go to. Sister Romi took them into her own modest home. She did not know Semei, and prejudice towards indigenous people is great in Campo Grande. Semei continued to have health problems, but Sister Romi’s great generosity brought forth further generosity from her neighbours.

Another new mother, a Catholic called Veronica, breastfed Semei’s child as she was unable to do so. Semei named her son Luke Nathanial and in time they were 28 able to move away from the city to a farm, but she did not forget the kindness of Sister Romi and her neighbours.

The water that Jesus gives, the water that Sister Romi received in baptism, became in her a spring of water and an offer of life to Semei and her child. Prompted by her witness, this same baptismal water became a spring, a fountain, in the lives of Romi’s neighbours. The water of baptism springing into life becomes an ecumenical witness of Christian love in action, a foretaste of the eternal life which Jesus promises.

Concrete gestures like these practiced by ordinary people are what we need in order to grow in fellowship. They give witness to the Gospel and relevance to ecumenical relations.

Questions

1. How do you interpret Jesus’ words that through him we may become “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14)?

2. Where do you see Christian people being springs of living water for you and for others?

3. Which are the situations in public life to which the churches should speak with a single voice in order to be springs of living water?

Prayer

Triune God,

following the example of Jesus,

make us witnesses to your love.

Grant us to become instruments of justice, peace and solidarity.

May your Spirit move us towards concrete actions that lead to unity.

May walls be transformed into bridges.

This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.