Sunday Daily TV Mass Sunday March 8, 2026

0:00The Archdiocese of Toronto and the National Catholic Broadcasting Council through the kind cooperation of the Toronto Catholic District School Board presents Sunday TV Mass. Welcome to the celebration of the Sunday TV Mass on the third Sunday of Lent I'm Montsenia Robert Nuska. The televising of this Mass is made possible by the contributions from three donors. The first is Mary Kwan from Port O'Port, Newfoundland, in thanksgiving for blessings received and for the daily TV Mass and for the spiritual awakening and healing of our world. The second is an anonymous donor from Landcaster, Pennsylvania, in support of the daily TV Mass. The third is an honor of all those in our daily TV Mass community who connect to us through our YouTube channel for healing and hope to all our viewers in

1:04Canada, the United States, and all around the world. Our thanks to our donors for the gift of this Mass. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God in the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Brothers and sisters, let us now acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries. You were sent to heal the contrite of heart, Lord have mercy. You came to call sinners Christ have mercy. You are seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us, Lord have mercy. May Almighty God have mercy in us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Let us pray. O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness, who in fasting prayer and armsgiving have shown us a remedy for sin, look graciously on this confession of our loneliness that we who are bowed down by our

2:07conscience may always be lifted up by your mercy. For our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the book of Exodus. In the wilderness, the people thirsted for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord, what shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. The Lord said to Moses, go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you, take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb, strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the

3:12people may drink. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Masa and Meriba because the children of Israel quarreled and tested the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. O that today, you would listen to the voice of the Lord, do not harden your hearts. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

4:20Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. O that today, you would listen to the voice of the Lord, do not harden your hearts. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pastor, and the sheep of his hand. O that today, you would listen to the voice of the Lord, do not harden your hearts.

5:30A reading from the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans. Brothers and sisters, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God, and hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us. The word of the Lord.

6:35Praise to you, Lord, King of eternal glory. Praise to you, Lord, King of eternal glory. Lord, you are truly the Savior of the world. Give me living water that I may never be thirsty. Praise to you, Lord, King of eternal glory. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, Lord. Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Psycar near the plot of ground that Jacob

7:43had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus tired out by his journey was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you give me a drink, you would ask Him, and He would give giving you living water. The woman said to Him, sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our Father Jacob who gave us the well and with his children and his flocks drank from it? Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but the one who drinks of the water that I will give will never be thirsty. The water that I will

8:46give will become for him a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for their Father seeks such as these to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that this, that the Messiah is coming, who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. Jesus said to her, I am He, the one who

9:52is speaking to you. Many Samaritans from the city believed in Jesus, so when they came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word, they said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world, the gospel of the Lord. In the Sunday's gospel, Saint John relates for us this encounter between Jesus and the unnamed Samaritan woman, normally referred to as the woman at the well. In Greek Orthodox traditions, she is remembered as Saint Fautini, literally the enlightened or illuminated one. Venerated as a great missionary, as a result of her encounter with Jesus, she would eventually go on to suffer martyrdom during the reign of the Emperor Nero. I think the several things emerge for

10:53our reflection. First of all, through her conversation with Jesus, for the record, the longest private conversation between Jesus and any individual in all four gospels, she has come to symbolize the spiritual seeker, the person who is searching for something much more in their life. But it's important to note that as a result of this encounter, not only does she leave behind her old way of life and become his follower, but she goes on to bring many others to Lord. In his comments on today's gospel, Saint John Chrysostom invites us at the same time to observe that how it is that as she converses with Jesus, this woman at the well moves to a much deeper understanding of who he is but does so gradually. Her illumination, her spiritual awakening unfolds, can we say, in stages. Chrysostom observes, and first she sees Jesus as a stranger who's simply asking for water. As she converses with him, she realizes that it's Jesus now who can provide her

11:57with spiritual nourishment, symbolizing these living waters of the Holy Spirit about which he speaks. Then she goes on to call Jesus a prophet. Now, when Jesus tells her that she is truly the Messiah, she is moved to leave behind her water jar and to go and tell the entire village about her encounter with Jesus. And in so doing, as we've heard, many people come to the Lord as a result of this personal encounter with Jesus. Second, I think we should remember that our own growth in the spiritual life is a process, a lifelong process to which we need to pay careful attention. It must be cultivated and protected in order for it to continue to grow and to flourish. And this is done through our own encounters with Jesus, through the life of prayer, the life of contemplation, the sacraments, our interactions with others, especially the poor in the suffering. For St. Augustine basically cautions that the waters of the well are really a symbol of the pleasures of this world, a symbol of the waters to which people return again and again

13:01seeking things that the last. He observes that when people give themselves up to the waters of this well, they will inevitably thirst again for more of the waters that never satisfy our spiritual thirst. Pope Benedict XVI was speaking in different terms when he spoke of the existential dissatisfaction of the person who does not find what they are seeking, symbolized here in the Samaritan woman. He comments as well upon the repetitiveness of her going to and from the well without ever finding these waters that Jesus alone can give us. But as today's gospel shows, Jesus wants to give us a share in these living waters that flow from the Holy Spirit, the life giving spiritual springs that have the power to renew and nourish our souls on our journey to the everlasting kingdom of God. So it is that the story of the woman at the well invites us to look within, to ask ourselves, what are the wells to which we are drawn over and over again?

14:02Material things to power, personal ambition, to the fleeting distractions of this world, or are we striving after things that don't last like the Samaritan woman? Here now are we, and as a result of her encounter, are we searching now for something greater, for a share in the spiritual life, for these life-giving waters that Jesus alone can give us again through the life upgrades and the power of the Holy Spirit. Today's gospel also invites us to reflect on the ways that we might seek to engage now in dialogue with others who do not know Jesus. Back in the 1960s, it was an Italian priest and professor of theology, Monsignor Luigi Giusani. He founded an international Catholic movement called Communion and Liberation. And his writings, now he speaks of our faith, is something more than just a doctrine, as a set of teachings. Monsignor Giusani, whose cause for canonization actually was opened in 2012,

15:02helps us to see our faith is in the first instance the result of an encounter, an encounter with God in Jesus Christ. For ultimately ours is a personal God. The God of love, the God of mercy, the God who calls each of us by name to the very heights of human transformation through the life of grace. So it is that Monsignor Giusani speaks of the importance of creating a culture of encounter, urging the rediscovery of the church's ability from the earliest times to communicate Christianity in its original elements with its great attractiveness, its beauty, its sense of wonder, its profound message for the human heart, the radical call to love, to serve the poor against the political and social elitism of the time. As we draw closer to Jesus with life of faith, we too are invited to foster this culture of encounter in our world today. So inspired by the woman at the well, how might we can communicate the message of the gospel to others today in our, can we call postmodern,

16:07post truth, global technocracy? How can we do so in a way that is again in the words of Monsignor Giusani, more personal, more accessible, radiant, more profound? Here are a number of the church fathers and saints, the origin and Ephraim of Syria, the saint, Ephraim, a saint, the Bernard of Clareville. All observed that yes, Jesus has described this thirsting for water, but it's God who ultimately thirsts for the return of all who are seeking something more than what can be offered by the stagnant waters of so many wells in our passing world. So as we continue to celebrate this mass, let us pray that like the Samaritan woman, we may be renewed by the spiritual fountain of the waters of life that Jesus offers us in this Eucharist. Let us pray as a result of our encounters with him that we may be able to draw others to God. As Pope Benedict again observes, our greatest need today is people who can make God credible by means of the enlightened faith that they live. Finally, we pray for a profound spiritual

17:11renewal in our own lives, beginning in the mass that we are now celebrating. Let us now profess our faith together in the words of the Apostles Creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ is only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and light everlasting. Amen. Now, let us now present our prayers and petitions to God in heaven, ask him to hear and to answer our prayers. For all those in our daily TV Mass prayer,

18:15intentions book, we pray to the Lord. This month's community prayer is for fathers, grandfathers, and protectors that they may lead with wisdom and humility inspired by the quiet faith of St. Joseph. We pray to the Lord. For peace in the world, we pray to the Lord. The Lord is the Lord. Heavenly Father, you know the needs of your people in this passing life. We ask you to hear the prayers we've made and those who remain deep within our hearts, for we make them all through Christ our Lord. Amen. Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, for through your goodness, we receive the bread we offer you, fruit of the earth, and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life. Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, for through your goodness, we receive the wine we offer you,

19:39fruit of the vine, and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink. Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice in yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father. Be pleased, O Lord, with the sacrificial offerings and grant that we who besiege pardon for our own sins may take care to forgive our neighbor, we ask this through Christ our Lord. The Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks. Lord, holy Father, Almighty and eternal God through Christ our Lord.

20:43For when he asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink, he had already created the gift of faith within her. So ardently did he thirst for her faith that he kindled in her the fire of divine love. So we too give you thanks with the angels and archangels praise your Almighty deeds as we acclaim. Holy, holy Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. You are indeed holy, O Lord, the fount of all wholeness. Make holy, therefore, these gifts we pray, by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall.

21:47That they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his passion, he took bread and given thanks broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, take this, all of you and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you. In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took the chalice and once more giving thanks, he gave it to his disciples saying, take this, all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me. The mystery of faith. We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection until you come again.

23:00Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the bread of life and the chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you. Humbly we pray that partaking of the body and blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit. Remember, Lord, your church, spread throughout the world and bring her to the fullness of charity, together with Leo, our Pope, Francis, our Bishop, and all the clergy. Remember also our brothers and sisters, who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and all who have died in your mercy. Welcome then into the light of your face. Have mercy on us all. We pray with the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with blessed Joseph, for spouse, with the blessed apostles, and with all the saints, who have pleased you throughout the ages. We may merit to be coheirs to eternal life and may praise and glorify you through your Son, Jesus Christ. Through him and with him and in him, O God,

24:04almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever. At the Savior's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say, our Father, I kingdom come, I will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Deliver us, Lord, we pray from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. For the kingdom of our glory, we are now in forever. Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles, peace, I leave you, my peace, I give you,

25:04look not on our sins, but on the faith of your church, and mercifully, graciously, grant our peace and unity in accordance with your will, who live and reign forever and ever. Peace of the Lord be with you always. And with your experience, extend to those around us a sign of the peace of Christ. For the kingdom of our glory, we pray from every evil, graciously grant peace and unity in accordance with your will, who live and reign forever. Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.

26:15Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb. So I am so shunned you. I shall bring you to the last thing I have done. Please join me now in this act of spiritual communion. My Jesus, I believe that you are present in this holy sacrament of the altar. I love you above all things, and I passionately desire to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come spiritually into my soul, so that I may unite myself wholly to you now and forever. Amen.

27:31Let us pray. As we receive the pledge of things yet hidden in heaven and are nourished while still on earth with the bread that comes from on high, we humbly entree you, O Lord, that what is being brought about in us in mystery may come truly to completion. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. O Lord, be with you. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Oforth the Mass is ended. Thanks be to God. Our thanks to our donors for the gift of this month. We offer our peace.

28:31We offer our love. We offer the good deeds we've done. Grant the stent broken, for all to share. And we gather together as one. We gather, we shake in the Father's love. We gather with Jesus his son. We gather and think with the spirit of God.