Daily Reflections — March 8, 2026

0:00Welcome to our day of the reflection for the Sunday March 8th and today the theme is about prayer. We have a long and beautiful gospel reading of Jesus, meaning the Samaritan woman from the gospel of John chapter 4 and it's a beautiful scene that is set up there and I want to start with where we begin with though and that is in the Exodus, Israel is wandering in the wilderness and they're suffering and they're thirsty. Now this is in Exodus 17. Now the previous chapter, Exodus 16, they had been hungry and they rumbled and complained and Moses interceded for them and God brought the manna, the bread from heaven. Now they're thirsty in the wilderness, they're out of water and they rumbled to Moses and they complain and like you brought us out here to kill us and they look at the worst intentions and they impute bad motives upon Moses and therefore more slightly God.

1:06And at the end you can see how this place is called the place of testing Masa and Maraibah which means place of testing and what's the test? As they put God to the test saying, you know, is the Lord with us or not? And why do they ask that question about God's presence because they were suffering? And here is the trial of human suffering. Whenever we suffer, there's a test. Will we panic and believe God has bad motives, bad intentions that He's forgotten us, He's neglected us, He's abandoned us or He's judging us and He's punishing us. Or will in the midst of our sufferings, which is part of the human lot because of sin and Adam and Eve in the fall, in the midst of our sufferings will we trust God and will we put our faith in Him? That is the inherent and enduring universal trial and test of suffering.

2:10Do we put our trust in God or do we put God to the test? Do you put Him to the test or do you put Him to the trust? And that's what Psalm 95 is all about. And again, it's about if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. In other words, if you want to hear God and obey Him because faith comes from hearing. And if we hear about who God is and we trust in Him because we hear that word, our hearts won't be hardened. But if through suffering we say, where is God? We want God to be, if we think that God is really with us, we shouldn't suffer, then our hearts harden like those in Israel who complain and grumbled. And so complaining and grumbling against God is a sign that we're not listening to the story and how suffering is going to be par for the course, right? And we're not really hearing His voice and the key then is to hear the voice of God or as Paul says in Romans 5, to realize that Jesus' suffering, death, is all about the love

3:14of God and that in the midst of suffering we can realize the mystery of God's love. Now that mystery of God's love is what we hear with the Samaritan woman and I love, I have an icon, we have even a larger one here at the Augustine's Tube, but this small icon was done by Father Justinian who has spent the last 50 years saying, Mass over Jacob's well. And he's a priest in the Holy Land who built the church over Jacob's well. And this beautiful icon he did when he was younger has incredible detail on it. You can see the rope, the fringes of the Samaritan woman's garments. And you see that water jar because in the story she will leave that water jar and that's very powerful image because Jesus asks her for a drink. And she takes that literally and she can't believe that a Jew is talking to a Samaritan woman and then he said, if you had known the gift of God, right?

4:14That is the question for us in our meditation today. Do we know the gift of God? God's love, God's presence. Israel didn't know the gift of the manna and so they thought God wasn't with them. And we should know the gift of the manna that is the Eucharist and know that God is present even in our suffering. And so the question today is, do we know the gift of God? And that God is present when we pray and that's all about prayer. And so I encourage you to think about the gift of God which is God's presence. And when Jesus says, I thirst, this is something that Saint Teresa of Calcutta and many saints have talked about how God thirsts for our love. And he wants to give us his love. Do we know that gift? Go back and read the very beginning of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on its fourth section on prayer which talks about this powerful scene of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. Or unformed, if you want to learn more about prayer and the power of prayer and the gift of prayer, I highly recommend Bishop Cousin's program on formed called the Heart of Prayer,

5:22which is a beautiful teaching about the heart of prayer. I also have a Bible study on formed called Lexio Prayer, which is also about praying. I talk about the scene of the Samaritan woman in that study as well. So today on this Sunday in Lent, let's reflect about the gift of God's presence, which is given to us in the Eucharist and in prayer. If we only knew the gift of God, Jesus tells us, may the Lord bless and keep you. Welcome. The Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology exists to make Christ and the Church better known and loved through rigorous academic study. We follow St. Augustine as our patron model, whose heart longed for God, and so he gave his mind to the study of the truths of our faith in a beautiful way. We have over 500 current students and over 1,000 alumni where the largest Catholic graduate school of theology come and find out why. We have a robust on-campus program here with many students living in community sharing

6:26meals, sharing morning prayer and evening prayer and fellowship. We also have a great distance education program where you can get personalized interaction with your faculty and your professors as well as a schedule that is very flexible that works with part-time study. And our master's programs are in theology in general, pastoral theology, scripture, physical studies, as well as Catholic education. Just a half hour north of St. Louis on a beautiful 286 acre spread on these rolling hills overlooking the Missouri River. We are about renewing the life of the parish and of the Catholic school. Come and find out more at augustin.edu, augustin.edu. Thank you and God bless. To sign up and start receiving these daily reflections in your inbox every day for free, visit form.org slash daily and enter your email. You can watch these reflections in video format by visiting formed.org.

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