Catherine attended a Women of the Well Weekend Retreat in Kincumber in November of 2023. She shared about her experience on this Retreat on her blog "Musings of Macca".
The Well
By Catherine McAleer
The flowers hung heavy, laden with water droplets from the previous days of rain. There was delicate beauty in them, with the droplets catching the overcast early morning light. They held a sadness too, weighed down by something they couldn’t control. They seemed all the more beautiful because of it. They need water. It’s essential for their survival. Growth requires it. Without it, they wither and die or at the very least, they lose their sparkle.
Life hangs in the balance with water. Too little and nothing grows, too much and nothing grows. I remember long stretches without rain, parched earth, dry grass, smoke filled skies and anxious faces. I felt the full force of an overflowing abundance, through my home and community. I felt closed in by overpowering inclemency and caught glimpses of my own anxious face.
Well – an issue of water from the earth: a pool fed by a spring. [1]
A necessity in the time of Jesus, a well is still the only water source in many communities around the world today. Back then, the role of a woman required her to go to the well in the early morning, to haul and carry home the life-giving source. Early morning because it was cooler and quite possibly because they needed the water to wash and prepare the day’s meals, another of the woman’s roles. The women also came to the well to be quenched. Quenched of their thirst for social interactions, companionship and sisterhood, a byproduct perhaps of what might be considered a menial daily task. They couldn’t go without.
The Plenary Council, long emotional, spirit-filled days bringing to bear small hopeful gains and life-giving water for the Church. Just over twelve months on, back where we began feeling beaten and bowed down, weighted with inactivity and decisions made by church leaders. Many things I can’t control. A career left discarded, weighed down by things I couldn’t control, wondering what went wrong and not having the energy to tackle a viable solution. A new job not providing the well-spring I had hoped, weighed down by policies and procedures I can’t control. Back in a community, trying to find my place, my water-source, my sisterhood.
I knew I needed something – solace, sisterhood, a new beginning I wasn’t sure. Enter Women of the Well, an opportunity shared twelve months earlier, but one I couldn’t take at the time. I gathered with other women, perhaps seeking the same, perhaps something else. It mattered little. I sat with the heaviness and beauty of the water laden flowers. Not knowing my true beauty and my worth – feeling alone. Two nights and barely two full days. We shared pain. We shared laughter and we shared stories. We sat. We listened. We sat and we listened some more. Sitting by ourselves and with our Creator, in small groups and as a whole. We listened to ourselves, to each other, to God and to Sophia.
Time did not falter, our departure was imminent. The circumstances we had retreated from in many cases still remained but there had been a shift. Sodden flowers began to lift their heads with the warmth of the sun and thirst was quenched. The two are not mutually exclusive. Sodden spirits can be weighed by inaction or expectations, at the same time our souls thirst for interactions, companionship and sisterhood. The well was not dry, nor overflowing. Giving to each something of what was sought, knowing they weren’t alone.
This article was originally published on December 24, 2023 on Musings By Macca.
