You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Wednesday, July 28th, 2021. This week we are talking about the fourth beatitude. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Now, today we are going to take a look at a very important Bible story that is

included in the Gospel of John to look at what it means for us, even though we are sinners

and imperfect, but what it means for us to truly live a life where we are hungering and thirsting for holiness,

even when life is really hard at the moment and how God sees us and is there.

So the story we're going to talk about is actually the woman at the well,

or the Samaritan woman. Now, the background is that Jesus is traveling, and he is traveling

through a Samaritan part of the country. Now, Samaritans are similar to Jews. They have some of the same beliefs

and some of the same ancestors even, but the Jews thought that they were very superior to

Samaritans. And because of their purity laws, they didn't mix. They hated each other. They

wouldn't eat the same food or even touch the same things.

There was a big divide. So that's the background. So it's noon. And as you can imagine in the part of

the world where this takes place in the Middle East, it is very hot at noon. And it is one of those

places where you do your work very early in the morning,

if you have to go outside, and then you rest inside during the heat of the day, or at least in

the shade somewhere, and you do work again in the evening. But in the hottest part of the day,

no one is out. So we're at this well. Christ is resting while his followers have gone into the city to

find food. It's super hot. The sun is straight overhead and the Samaritan woman walks out of the village

to fetch water. Now, why is she out here working during the hottest part of the day? Well, it's because she is seen as a sinful woman. She has been rejected, and she doesn't want to be around other people. So that's her background. So she comes to the well. Christ is sitting there, and Christ asks her for water.

And she's surprised, why would a Jew ask her for water?

Wouldn't this Jew think that she was filthy and that simply touching the water she had drawn would contaminate him?

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