The Samaritan woman

Fr. Jim Whalen was the previous National Director of Priests for Life Canada. He died on Sunday, February 24, 2008.

Here is his last talk. It begins:
"Jesus creates a crisis in His public ministry, a moment of truth, a moment of decision, to an anonymous Samaritan woman. She has to decide to say "yes" or "no" to Jesus and to what He offers her. She has to decide to reject or accept the offer of living water - the truth. If she rejects the living water and continues with well water, her life will not change. She will continue in her old ways of changing husbands and lovers every so often, running, hiding, and paying lip service to her faith. If she accepts the living water, she will be a changed woman, a new woman, a born again woman, and a new creation. She must decide to reject or accept the truth.

The ministry of Jesus continues today in our world. The woman at the well is the woman seeking lethal ser­vices at the local abortion clinic. She is running from a mistake, an error, a sin. She is running from a future with a child, trying to escape from a trouble­some relationship, abandoned by her husband or a current lover. This is the woman at the well today, a woman in need of the truth, a woman in need of the Church, a woman in need of you and me. She has been misled or misin­formed about the truth of abortion. Jesus wants us to be there for the woman at the well today, offering her support, offering her the truth, and helping her to decide to save, not to take the life, of the little one within her as well as her own immortal soul..."