The Samaritan Woman & The Living Water

“But He calls the live-giving gift of the Spirit, ‘living water’, whereby alone human nature, though well parched to its very roots, and is now rendered dry and barren of all virtue by the villainies of the devil, runs back to its pristine beauty of nature, and, drinking in the life-giving grace, is adorned with varied forms of good things, and shooting forth into a virtuous habit puts forth most thriving shoots of love towards God. Some such thing as this God says to us by the Prophet Isaiah also, The beast of the field shall honour Me, the dragons and the owls, because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen, whom I have formed for Myself to declare Mine excellencies. And another of the Saints says that the soul of the righteous shall be as a fruitful tree, and shall spring up as grass among the waters, and shall appear as the willow by running water.” St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 4,11.