The Fountain

“He asks for a drink, and He promises a drink. He is in need, as one hoping to receive, yet He is rich, as one about to satisfy the thirst of others. He says: If you knew the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But He is still using veiled language as He speaks to the woman and gradually enters into her heart. Or is He already teaching her? What could be more gentle and kind than the encouragement He gives? If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ perhaps you might ask and He would give you living water.

What is this water that He will give if not the water spoken of in Scripture: With You is the fountain of life? How can those feel thirst who will drink deeply from the abundance in Your house?

He was promising the Holy Spirit in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp His meaning, what was her reply? The woman says to Him, Master, give me this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water. Her need forced her to this labor, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could hear those words: Come to Me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labors might be at an end; but she was not yet able to understand.”
~St. Augustine