St. Photina

one

Jesus journeyed to a city of Samaria, called Sy′char, (today it is Nablus)…Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”…The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water?...Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

“Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst…”

The Samaritan Woman has the one thing necessary – she has the right desire. She has a desire for the Living Water. She has tried everything else – and it doesn’t work. Now she desires God. St Thomas Aquinas was asked: “What does it take to become a saint?” He responded: Want it. Desire it. Then you will seek, and you will find it. Do you desire God? Do you want to drink of the Living Water more than anything else?

two

The woman said to Jesus, “I perceive that you are a prophet…I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”…So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” Then they went out of the city and were coming to him. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.

three

From Tradition we know the name of the Samaritan Woman. Her name is Photina. She had five husbands and she was living with a man who was not her husband. But then she meets Jesus. She has no theology degree, no professional training; but she knows Jesus is the One Savior of the World. She goes immediately and tells her family and friends. Photina has the two great qualities which we need: she desired God. And the second, she is not timid, she is not controlled by fear. She has courage. We are not like Photina, we are too timid. Our faith was meant to be personal, but it was never meant to be kept private.

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In 66 AD Photina and her grown children, being warned that Rome was about to conquer Israel, left and moved to Carthage in North Africa.

Her son Victor became an officer in the Roman army. A Government official and friend of Victor, named Sebastian wrote him, urging him and his mother to stop leading people to Jesus and to keep their faith private. As Sebastian was writing the letter, he fell blind for three days. On the 4th day he declared: “The God of the Christians is the only true God.” He asked for Baptism, after which he immediately regained his sight. Reports of this miraculous event reached the Emperor Nero. Both Sebastian and Victor were arrested and taken to Rome.

Hearing this news, Photina and her family went to Rome, accompanied by many Christians. They too were arrested and brought before Nero, but they refused to renounce Jesus Christ and were imprisoned, where they continued to speak to the fellow prisoners about Jesus and converted many. Finally they were tortured and put to death. A relic of the skull of Photina resides in the Church of Jacob’s well in Nablus in the Holy Land. I have often stood before that relic of the Martyr, Photina, praying God give me and you the grace to have the same love and courage as Photina.

five

When I was doing my doctoral studies at the University of Dayton I was working for a parish just north of Dayton. One day at the Parish we got a call from a woman.

She was a graduate student who was from China and she wanted to talk. So she came to my office and she related that she was a graduate student in English and a professor had mentioned the name of Jesus. She went up to the professor after class and asked, “Who is that?” The professor didn’t know what to do but was a parishioner and suggested she contact us.

I asked her, “What do you know about Jesus?” And she said, “Nothing. That was the first time I’ve ever heard the name. Can you tell me about Him?”

I didn’t really know what to do. I’d never met a person who’d never even heard about Jesus. So we began to meet and I walked her through the Gospel of John. We would just read it out loud together and talk about it.

We came to this passage and I read the words of Jesus, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst and the water shall become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

At that moment she stopped me and asked, “How can I get this living water?”

I said, “Baptism.”

“Then I want to be baptized.”

So I met with her once a week until Easter, where both she and her five year old daughter were baptized. They received the living water.

There is unbelievable power if we will just be willing to talk about Jesus.