Homily on the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman*
By Righteous Alexei Mechev
By Righteous Alexei Mechev
Our Lord Jesus Christ tirelessly taught His disciples and listeners. Therefore, huge crowds of people constantly followed Him, thirsting to listen to His holy teaching.
And now He preaches at the well. He is tired after a long journey and a hot day. A Samaritan woman comes to the same well for water. The Lord enters into a conversation with her about true prayer, about where one should pray to God, gives her instructions about eternal life, and convicts her of secret sins.
The Samaritan woman, hearing a reminder of her intemperate life, dissolute and with an unlawful husband, was touched by this to the depths of her conscience and heart, did not justify herself, but from an excess of grateful feeling exclaimed: “Lord! I perceive that You are a Prophet” (John 4:19), and led the whole city to meet the Lord.
This remarkable woman later became a Christian, at baptism she was called Photini (i.e. radiant) and subsequently fully justified the meaning of her name. She preached the name of Christ not only in her homeland, but also in other countries - in Africa and in Italy. Together with her youngest son, she converted many to Christ. Her eldest son Victor served in the army under Nero and was made a commander in Italy in order to exterminate Christianity there, but instead, as a soldier of Christ, he was a patron of Christians and, like his mother, a zealous preacher of the gospel. When the Roman tyrant learned of this, he ordered the Christians to be brought before him. At this time, Photini with her five sisters and son voluntarily came to the tyrant and to his question: "Why have you come to us?" they answered: "In order to teach you to revere Christ." Then the tormentor ordered the hands of the Saints to be crushed on the anvil. This, however, did not destroy either their faith or their bodies. It was ordered that their hands be cut off, but the sword had no effect. The martyrs were imprisoned, but even in prison they continued to preach Christ and turned the place of criminals into a temple of God, for which they were subjected to new tortures, amidst which they ended their suffering lives. The skin was flayed from Saint Photini (the Samaritan woman), and her body, by order of the tyrant, was thrown into a well. Thus she who at the well abandoned the path of sin and received from the Life-giver a new, grace-filled life, in the well also left her temporary life and passed into another life, better, blessed, eternal (Prologue, March 20) .
Such was the Samaritan woman mentioned in the Gospel. So courageously did she endure suffering for the faith of Christ! Her life is one of the striking examples of how the grace of God is capable of reviving even the most sinful soul and raising it from the abyss of wickedness to the heights of spiritual glory. The sinful, despised Photini went to the well to secretly draw ordinary water, but drew “living water, saving water.” The sinner, whose mere touch was considered desecration for the zealots of the law, is mercifully accepted by the Lord and Savior! What a strong approval, what an unshakable support for all of us sinners. The Lord is always, every minute, ready to accept anyone who turns to Him with all sincerity and depth of repentance.
Therefore, friends, no matter how wicked we may be, it is worthwhile to turn to the Lord Jesus in complete repentance; but our appeal to the Lord Savior should not consist of empty words, not of sighing for just a moment, but in a sincere, firm determination to break free, without turning back, from the abyss of vice.
Notes:
* Delivered on the 5th Sunday after Pascha, before the Revolution. Year unknown. Published for the first time from the “Speech Plans” from the archive of E. V. Apushkina, a spiritual daughter of Righteous Alexei.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
