In the third of her meditations, Laurentia Johns OSB, a nun of Stanbrook Abbey, considers how our desire to love and serve God can be rekindled in Lent.

One Saturday in the 1980s I was travelling by train from Paddington to Swansea. England had beaten Wales at Twickenham and I was sick at heart – but not because of the rugby. A fellow traveller and stranger, noticing my anguish, spoke some kind words, perhaps about the match; I can’t recall. But I shall never forget the look of compassion; something inside me came back to life.

The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman shimmers with the same unexpected energy: there must surely have been eloquent eye contact between this woman and the divine-human Word who empathises with our deepest need. In “The Samaritan Woman”, a poem he published before he was elected Pope, Karol Wojtyla writes: