In 1887 a 7-year-old girl named Helen Keller lived in Alabama. She was blind, deaf, and dumb. Yet before Helen died, she would graduate from college with honours, become a widely acclaimed author, political activist, lecturer, and an inspiration to handicapped people the world over. The story behind her amazing achievement dates to a spring day in 1887, when a 20-year-old woman named Annie Sullivan came to Alabama to be Helen’s private teacher. Helen describes in her autobiography an incident with her teacher Annie Sullivan. My teacher brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. We walked down the path to a well-house. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hands under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other the word water. I stood still my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that water meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. I left the well house eager to learn. The story of Helen Keller at the well-house bears a striking resemblance to the story in today’s gospel. It took place at a well; it too involved a teacher and a student. In it the teacher also used water to communicate an important message to the student. And the message changed the life of the student forever. We all have a spiritual thirst like our bodily thirst for water. The thirst we all experience is a thirst for God. The great St. Augustine explained it in this way: Out hearts are made for God, and they will not rest until they rest in God. Many people in our world today fall into the trap and trying to satisfy their spiritual thirst with something other than God, there selling their souls to the cathedral of consumerism. During Lent the church challenges us to look into our own lives and see what we need to change. During this synodal process in our church, many people are focussing on what the church needs to change and while we accept that the church does need to change certain  traditions, why not focus on what we need to change. We are responsible for living our ouwn faith, not the institutional church. Change needs to begin within each of us as human beings, because that is essentially what our religion is meant to be, making us integrated human beings like Christ. A quote from Helen Keller: ‘Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy cause’. To experience the effect of God’s presence in the world offering us new life, new meaning, and direction we need to recognize our thirst. The woman in the gospel today was not happy she was looking for a more fulfilled life experience. Like her we at times look for happiness in the wrong places.  It’s clear that happiness comes from within. Now a days in our world many people seem to think that if we are unhappy, we need to change the external structures of our life; get a divorce, change your job, change your neighbourhood, these structures do not make us happy (she was married five times). This woman was seeking the true water of life (happiness) and Jesus was the only person who could give it to her. Where am I seeking the true water of life that will give me happiness and fulfillment?