Use this Art Guide video in Step 3: Contemplation of Columban 
A resource to help you pray using the images and Art Guide of the 2023 Columban Art Calendar.
Jesus Speaks with the Samaritan Woman Carl Bloch (1834–1890). Restored Traditions.
Carl Bloch was a Danish painter who studied art in his homeland, Italy and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands he became strongly influenced by the luminous paintings of Rembrandt. Bloch painted several canvasses on the theme of Christ’s public ministry, and this painting of Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman belongs to the series. Many Jews regarded the Samaritans as foreigners. However, the Gospels of John and Luke are favourable to the Samaritans throughout.
Bloch’s painting, inspired by the Gospel narrative (John 4:4–26), visualizes the moment Jesus passed through Samaria on his return to Galilee. Wearied by the journey, he sat beside Jacob’s Well and there he met a local woman. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink”.
Bloch depicts the charged moment when the woman interacts with Jesus by asking a question. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus answered, “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.” (4:7–11). Instead, Jesus offers the woman “living water”: “… a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She responded, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw” (4:15–16). Converted by the powerful encounter with Jesus, the Samaritan woman quickly related His words at the well, and through her witness, many came to believe in Him.
