Welcoming & Embracing the Stranger: Lenten Reflections with the Artwork of James Tissot

March 13, 2026 - Friday of the Third Week of Lent

When I first look at James Tissot’s The Woman of Samaria at the Well, what immediately draws my attention is the posture of the figures. The Samaritan woman stands turned partly away, her body angled as if undecided, while Christ faces her openly.

I like to think this is the instant before our Lord asks her for a drink before she turns fully toward Him. Nothing dramatic has happened yet. No miracle, no revelation. Only a voice speaking, and a woman choosing whether to remain or to walk away. Whether to listen or to ignore. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus recalls the first words of the great commandment: “Hear, O Israel.” Before love is commanded, listening is required. Love of God and love of neighbor do not begin with action, but with attention, by allowing oneself to be addressed. This is what Jesus Himself practices so often. He does not force encounters. After all, love can never be forced. 

Instead, our Lord speaks, He waits, and He allows space for a response. To welcome another person, especially a stranger, is first to grant them the dignity of being heard. 

The prophet Hosea echoes this movement of listening and turning. “Come back to the Lord your God,” he urges, calling the people to return not with sacrifices, but with words and honest hearts willing to be reshaped. God’s promise is gentle, healing, restorative, and fruitful. Conversion, Hosea suggests, is not a violent rupture, but a slow reorientation, learning again where to stand and whom to face.  

Tissot’s Samaritan woman stands at that threshold. She is a stranger by every measure, yet Christ meets her not with suspicion, but with patient attention. Our Lord hides nothing; He reveals everything. The truth He speaks is not meant to expose the woman, but to heal her and restore her dignity. It is this truth that draws the woman into a transformative encounter with the One who tells her everything (cf. Jn 4:29). Yet this can only be done if she is willing to listen.  

Lent invites us into that same posture. Welcoming and embracing the stranger, whether the person before us or the unfamiliar places within our own hearts, where we are strangers to ourselves, requires that we slow down enough to listen. This season asks us whether we are willing to pause at the well, hear the voice that calls us to return, and turn, little by little, toward the love that makes us whole. 

Pour your grace into our hearts, we pray, O Lord, that we may be constantly drawn away from unruly desires and obey by your own gift the heavenly teaching you give us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Deacon Konrad Kosiek, Archdiocese of Newark

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