You are all welcome! Today we will reflect on Marie Eugénie, the thirst and the garden.
In 1874, while participating in the second National Pilgrimage to Lourdes, Marie Eugénie used this small cup to drink from the spring that flows from the rock of the grotto. This cup reminds me of the Samaritan woman. ‘Give me a drink,’ Jesus said to her. Marie Eugénie comments: ‘He walks from village to village, from place to place’ (MME, Instr. 2 March 1883). He is "like us, subject to our earthly fatigue. ‘ (MME, Instr. 24 February 1878)
What does this thirst mean for Marie Eugénie? We can say that it is first and foremost an expression of human fragility. ‘What heart is not thirsty?, she says. There is no torment more terrible than thirst. " (MME, Instr. 24 December 1886). And she often contemplates Christ's thirst during the Passion and, as a penance, she sometimes forces herself to drink less in order to be united with Christ who thirsts on the cross. With him, during this Lenten season, we can simply place our weaknesses, our empty glasses on the edge of the well and accept them.
But, says Marie Eugénie, Christ is filled with another thirst: ‘He was certainly even more tired from seeking the people he was waiting for, from the desire to give them this water... which he had come to bring to them.’ " (MME, Instr. 24 February 1878) Yes, Christ thirsts for his people, for you, for me, for each of his children. Jesus, as he enters into dialogue with this Samaritan woman who approaches the well, hopes to awaken her inner thirst.
He, who was thirsty, wants to become a source of life, a source of water within us. When we feel dry, says Marie Eugenie, we can ‘establish a channel between the divine source and our poor, dry and arid soul.’ When it’s difficult to pray, we must persevere and go back to the spring. It is a matter of ‘watering our garden’(cf. MME, Instr. 19 August 1883). Here is the question: how will we water our inner garden?
This perseverance consists in remaining, silently, humbly, close to the source of Christ: "When we want to drink from a spring, if we remove the glass, it will soon be empty. But if we leave it so that the spring fills it, it will always be full. If we keep our hearts in the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, they will always be full of good things, never empty of his love or of true love for our neighbour. " (MME, Instr. 14 December 1883)
Then, filled with the source of Christ, may be we will hear, like Mother Therese Emmanuel in 1856, God saying to us: "I enlighten you with infinite care, but do not think that it is only for yourself. It is for others. I have made you a channel. It is to water. I am the source within you, and I want to pour myself out through you (...) You are like a garden where vegetables and fruit are grown to feed all who come." So this week, at the well with the Samaritan woman, let us allow God to transform us, let us not forget to water our inner garden! Let us drink the water from the true sources!