Cracked Clay

One struck out in her youth, in her lithe energy, in her graceful strength, in her fulsome charms. Her desires had come alive in their ebullience .... and bountifully. On every horizon she saw new destinations to seek, new relationships to experience, and many new things to have. She must have them. They must become her possessions. "And why not?" she thought to herself. "For every man I meet desires me. My charms have put them all under a spell. And these men will buy what I want .... so many men and so many things!" She never took a thought for tomorrow. Why should she? For she could plainly see that tomorrow will be more exciting than the day that had just passed.

But a tomorrow she did not foresee had come. A destination had arrived far different from those she had sought. It was a destination that had been hidden from her young and peering eyes, or, better said, a destination that was eclipsed by the glittering choices lying before her. But now all the glitter had dimmed .... to nothing. The effervescence had gone flat. And what had become of her lithesome form? Where did all her energy and brightness go? And what of her charms? They had dimmed, as well. For beneath the veil of ornaments that dazzle and fragrances that inebriate, beneath every surface in the human lifeworld, is clay — our feet of clay, the clay of our moral coils, which has now become a heavy, heavy burden to bear .... and which we cannot set down. She had become clay, brittle and cracked. The sweetness of life which once she held in such abundance now simply flowed through, through the cracks, over the clay, into the mud. The water flowed through the cracks before she could slake her thirst. And now she trudges forward bearing her heavy weight every morning, every night, back and forth to the well, seeking a few more drops.

And all the things that she had seen, which she would confidently store up forever, to have, to own, to possess, to adorn her life of magic and charms, were all now gone. All had slipped away. All had soured. All had died. How did this happen? When did it happen? Was this not the stuff that would last?! It seemed, no so long ago, that it would .... last forever. It seemed that way. So she lived only for today .... always today. And now she continues to live for today, to get through the day, not what she had ever imagined — a lumbering body, diseased, ailing, burdensome, nearly all cracked clay now and very little life. She had become life's brokenness.

Another young girl looked all about her surveying the household of her birth — the family all around her, her happy sisters and brothers, the abiding love between her mother and father. Her young imagination spanned the breadth of their lifeworld as she conceived all the ways in which she might serve them: the cleaning, the cooking, the spinning, the weaving, the sewing, the darning. She followed her mother at every hour and learned how to choose the best yarns and cottons. She learned all about the herbs and the spices. She learned about planning and planting the family garden, the harvesting and stewing and preserving. And when winter comes, she takes satisfaction that her family is well clothed knowing that every rent and every tear has been mended. Her modest smile is known in the village. The poor announce benedictions upon her when she passes, for each has known her humility, her compassion, and her kindness. And the fear of God, she nurtures in in her pure and loving breast (Proverbs 31:10-31).

When she marries, the heart of her husband safely trusts her. He will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. He is known in the gates of the city. He sits among the elders of the land. And his place is one of honor and respect. For his wife is like a fruitful vine in the very heart of his house. His children are like olive plants all around the family table (Ps 128:1-6).

O upright and sensible man, an excellent wife who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels. Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. She is the ever-yielding fountain of the sweetness of life:

We might say that the Two Ways are laid before us near Sychar, Samaria at Jacob's Well in the person of a nameless woman. She is the anti-fountain. She is no source of life. Her cracked clay cannot even hold water, which eludes her day after day, as she must return to the well in an endless round. She plods onward toward the close of her earthly (and earthy) journey. As we all must be in the end, she stands alone before God. At about three in the afternoon beside the Well of Jacob, She stands before the Living God, "who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (Jn 4:29)

Each of us at the end of our lives must follow her. We must face God alone. We must look into His face and see our lives in unflinching clarity. We see the whole truth about ourselves, which we had never seen .... and can scarcely now bear to look. Yet, in God's face is also the greatest love we shall ever know. Both are present: perfect justice and perfect mercy.

We understand our sins finally and completely. For they are never willy-nilly or random. They always tell a story: the story of a life that has ever indulged itself, the story of one who believe vainly that all might be kept secret. In the woman's case, hers is a carnal story of men, of many men. Who can claim to be surprised? For the saints have told us from the beginning that no sin drags so many souls off to Hell as this one. And the earliest Fathers numbered fornication, together with murder and apostasy, as the gravest possible offenses against God.

It is at this searing moment, this moment of humiliation and disgrace, that we come onto our burning point. Hans Urs von Balthasar, SJ writes that it is a consuming fire, a purging conflagration .... if we will but be purged, if we will but kneel and confess our sins and offer a contrite heart to God. Two ways always lie before us: the first we behold in the thief to the left of the Crucified One. His is the way of insolence. For all time, he will be the type of the accused woman or the indicted man who descends into rage and prideful resistance. By contrast, we behold in the thief to Jesus' right the eternal type of humility — of consent to the difficult truth ("Yes, I did this.") and of confession. And this second path of life the nameless woman at the well chooses. As she sees her life displayed in Jesus' face, she does not deny, nor cavil, nor explain, but accepts with openness and simple assent:

From this moment, now accepting the fullness of her guilt and shame and now receiving God's forgiveness, she immediately is transformed into an Apostle. She will be styled "the first apostle," the first to proclaim Christ to the world, rushing into her town and beginning a mass conversion of the townspeople.

Her transformation, her complete alteration of life, is signified by a simple, profound act:

She has become newborn. She will no longer be nameless. No longer will she lumber forward toward death ossifying into all-clay and no-life, but quite the opposite. Like the virtuous wife of Psalm 5, she has become a fountain and will be for the rest of her life sharing with others the life-giving waters of Jesus the Christ:

She will be named St Photini (after the Greek for "light," phos), the "enlightened one," for she is filled with light (Mk 4:21), a lamp-stand shining out to the world (Mt 5:15-16):

The woman at the well is renewed in God's life-giving power. She has imbibed the waters of Heaven's Kingdom and has become one with those waters. For this is among the promises of Christ:

That is, at the end of Chapter 21, St John reprises the story of St Photini, which he had related back in Chapter 4. The final message of his soaring Gospel, circulated around the same time as the Didache, which he helped to compose and compile, is clear: two different ways through life are possible; two different kinds of love might be offered; two different kinds of life might be lived. Half-hearted life leads into the Way of Death. By contrast, the open, humble, and outpouring of agape, self-less love, flowing from St Photini, Equal-to-the-Apostles, leads into the Way of Life.

Which path shall be ours? Will we look squarely into the Lord's face before we die? Will we face our many faults in His all-knowing gaze and beg forgiveness for our offenses? Will we love Him with the same love that He manifestly has poured out upon us? From the beginning of the Creation ("and the Word was God") unto the last stretch of our own road: here is the meaning of the Holy Gospel According to St John. The meaning of Heaven and Earth turns out to be intensely personal. It turns out, that it is all about us. Yet, in God's mind-bending Wisdom and Power, it is all about each of us and all of us. For the Kingdom of Heaven comprises each and every one of us, every life born into the world. He calls each of us into His life-changing love, to be servants with Him, to be humble before Him and each other, and to leave off the things that lead toward clay, heavy and cracked clay, all-clay and no-life:

                  Sir! We would have this water always!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.   Amen.