The silence that saves

Fr David Howell• April 6, 2025

In Sunday’s Gospel (John 8:1–12), Jesus writes on the ground in response to the Pharisees’ question of whether an adulterous woman should be stoned. Had he agreed, they would have accused him to the Romans for illegally promoting the Jews’ right to execute wrongdoers; had he refused, they would have charged him with disobedience to the law of Moses.

His silent response is mysterious, but it could evoke a verse from Jeremiah: “Those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 17:13). Jesus perhaps writes the names of those Pharisees in the dust because they have rejected him by setting their trap. He has just presented himself as “a fountain of living water” in the previous chapter (John 7:37–38): “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”

Jesus said these words at the end of the Feast of Booths, when the Jews remembered their wandering in the desert and how they drank from the miraculous rock which Moses struck. Jesus himself is the fulfilment of that rock, and when his side is struck by the lance on the Cross, water will pour out, as well as blood – signs of the real gift of the Holy Spirit whom he sends us.

In our first reading, Isaiah (43:20) also looks forward to this gift of living water: “I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.” If we find ourselves in a spiritual desert, like the adulterous woman in the Gospel, let us trust that Jesus is constantly sending us his Holy Spirit from his pierced heart, to forgive and refresh us, so we can move forward. As St Paul says in the second reading, “[there is] one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13–14)

Mary our mother could have suffered the threatened fate of this adulterous woman when she was discovered to be pregnant unexpectedly. She knows what it is to find herself in a spiritual desert where there seems to be no mercy. Let us ask her to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s living water at every moment.

(Picture credit: Rembrandt | Public Domain)