Encounter Jesus Personally - A Well Within Every Woman
- BE
- Apr 23, 2025
- 9 min read
Women of the Bible - Their Faith, Strength, and Heart - Photini, the Woman at the Well
Samaritan Woman Reflection
What does it mean to encounter Jesus personally?
The answer begins at an ordinary well in Samaria, where an unexpected conversation changed one woman's life forever. Known in Christian tradition as Photini, the Samaritan woman came looking for water but discovered something infinitely greater - a Saviour who saw beyond her past and spoke directly to her heart.
Her story is an invitation to move beyond inherited faith, religious routine, or secondhand testimony into a living relationship with Christ.
The Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) is the biblical archetype of a personal encounter that shatters religious formality.
She was:
An outsider (Samaritan, with a complicated personal history).
Trapped in routine (coming to the well at noon to avoid others).
Skeptical at first (“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me?”).
Yet, after one direct conversation with Jesus, who saw her fully and offered “living water,” she left her jar behind, ran to her town, and became an evangelist: “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
Today, I invite you to encounter Jesus personally, beginning with Photini at the well of your own heart.
As we read in John 4:42, the people from her village declared:
“Now we believe, not just because of what you said, but we have heard for ourselves and know that this truly is the Saviour of the world.”
The Woman Everyone Misunderstood Until Jesus Revealed Who She Really Was
Before she became one of the first witnesses to Christ, she was simply a woman carrying a water jar and a story no one truly knew.
Rejected by society yet fully known by Jesus, Photini reminds us that our deepest encounters with God often begin in the places where we feel unseen.
One day, as usual, Photini came to the well. Her arrival at noon, often taken as a sign of shame, may actually point to something more complex than simple guilt or sin.
The Gospel doesn’t judge her, but we often do.
What we know is that she had five husbands and was living with someone who was not her husband. But Jesus never condemns her. Instead, He speaks directly and compassionately, offering her living water.
I think every woman carries within her the echo of Photini - the Samaritan woman - whose chore and thirst led her to the well, unaware that she was about to meet the One who would change everything.
The well, in this space, becomes a symbol of the heart - deep, hidden, often weary - yet created to hold the Living Water. ENCOUNTER is where soul meets Saviour. It’s the sacred place of pause, of recognition, of intimacy.
As St. Teresa of Ávila wrote:
“The soul is like a castle made entirely of diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.”
In this space, one such room opens - the place where Jesus waits beside our well.
The courage of Photini can only inspire if we dare to know her - not just as a figure in Scripture, but as a woman who stepped out of shame and into purpose.
She came with a past.
She left with a mission.
Her testimony lit the fire, but her village believed not only because of her words, but because they encountered Jesus themselves.
And so do we. This is the invitation:
To come and see,
To stay and listen,
To move from hearing about Him to knowing Him for ourselves.
A Woman Treated Like a Seeker of Truth
What’s more striking is her spiritual depth.
She knew about the coming of the Messiah and wasn't afraid to enter into a theological conversation with a man, something radical for her time.
She asked questions.
She listened.
And when her heart recognized the truth, she didn't hide it.
She acted. She ran to her village, the same people who likely judged her, and became a witness.
She was not a woman of shame. She was a woman of strength, clarity, and mission.
Jesus didn’t treat her as a sinner to be silenced. He treated her as a seeker of truth, worthy of deep revelation.
Her dignity was restored in the quiet unfolding of conversation. Through being seen, heard, and engaged without judgment, she encountered a presence that did not reduce her to her past but spoke to her deepest worth.
In that sacred exchange, transformation arrived as a gentle awakening where dialogue became the threshold through which grace entered, and a new identity began to emerge.
A Forgotten Apostle
It’s astonishing how few Catholics today know her name: Photini.
Yet she was the first person to whom Jesus explicitly revealed that He is the Messiah (John 4:26).
Before Peter’s confession.
Before the miracles and teachings spread.
This woman, foreign, socially outcast, religiously "wrong," received a revelation of cosmic importance.
And she didn’t keep it to herself.
Photini ran and evangelized her village. Her testimony led others to meet Jesus, and once they encountered Him, they believed not only because of her, but because they had seen Him themselves.
That is the heart of discipleship: to bring others not to ourselves, but to Christ.
Still, Photini’s name and significance have been largely forgotten in the Western Church. In the Eastern tradition, she is revered as Equal to the Apostles, her bold witness honoured, her martyrdom remembered. But in many Catholic homilies and reflections, she remains unnamed, simplified into a moral lesson rather than a missionary figure.
Her voice was prophetic. It is time we let it speak again.
💧Inspired by Saint Photini’s courage to preach? Leave the Jar. Find the Well.
The First to Hear the Truth About Worship
Photini was not only the first to receive Jesus’ self-revelation as the Messiah, but she was also the first to hear His groundbreaking teaching on worship - John 4:21–24 :
“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”
This was a theological turning point.
It marked the end of exclusive, location-based worship and the beginning of a universal, interior relationship with God open to all who approach in spirit and truth. Jesus didn’t entrust this truth to a rabbi, a priest, or even His own disciples. He gave it to her. A Samaritan woman. An outsider.
This shows us not only Jesus’ trust in Photini but her capacity to understand and carry such a mystery. She wasn’t a passive listener - she was a theologically engaged woman with a receptive spirit.
Long before Pentecost, long before the missionary journeys of the apostles, the revolution of the Spirit had already begun in her heart.
From the Jar to the Mission
The Gospel of John 4:28 says,
“Then the woman left her water jar…”
This simple sentence is a profound act of transformation.
The jar was her reason for coming - her daily burden, her symbol of dependence. In leaving it behind, she showed that what she had received from Jesus was greater than what she came to get.
She ran back to the village on purpose. This was not the same woman who approached the well in isolation. This was a woman who had been radically seen, forgiven, and called. The water she had drawn was replaced by the Living Water flowing within her, and she could not keep it in.
In that moment, she became a vessel of truth. And through her witness, others believed. Her past prepared her. The well was no longer a place of labour, but of encounter, and she carried that encounter outward.
Photini, a Mirror for Modern Women
Photini stands as a mirror for every woman who has ever been misjudged. She represents those who carry complex pasts, quiet burdens, or invisible strength. For women whose voices were ignored, whose hearts were underestimated, Photini is proof that Jesus sees more.
She was spiritually intelligent, emotionally brave, and socially subversive. She spoke when silence was expected. She testified when it was dangerous. She followed her conviction rather than tradition. Her life shows us that the call to discipleship is not limited by gender, status, or past mistakes.
Today, modern women face many of the same judgments expected to carry burdens quietly, to conform, to shrink.
Photini’s story invites us to shed those burdens, speak with courage, and step into sacred purpose. The same Living Water that flowed through her is offered to every woman today.
She is not a relic of history. She is a symbol of what happens when a woman is seen by Christ and dares to live from that encounter.
A Modern Samaritan Woman: Alicja Lenczewska’s Invitation
Just as the Samaritan woman encountered Jesus at the well and left her water jar behind, Alicja Lenczewska’s life stands as a powerful modern witness to the same transforming encounter.
For over fifty years, she lived with an inherited faith - the external practices of Catholicism without a living relationship. Raised in a Catholic family, Alicja practiced the externals (Masses, prayers) but lived a largely secular life.
She followed religious routines, built a successful career as a teacher and vice-principal, travelled, pursued culture, and even joined the communist party for professional reasons. Her faith remained secondhand, cultural, and comfortably distant.
Then, on March 8, 1985, during a Charismatic Renewal retreat in Gostyń, Poland, everything changed. While receiving Holy Communion, Jesus stood before her - more real than anything else in the chapel. In that single, personal encounter, the living Christ shattered her routine and captured her heart completely.
She described overwhelming love mixed with remorse for her late arrival to Him. This was not theological theory or someone else’s testimony. It was a direct, personal meeting that “completely changed my life.”
From that moment until she died in 2012, Alicja no longer lived a compartmentalized religious life.
She entered into a deep, daily, intimate dialogue with Jesus.
She surrendered her independence, embraced childlike dependence on God (dziecięctwo Boże), offered her suffering, and faithfully recorded His words in her spiritual diary (Świadectwo and Słowo Pouczenia).
She moved from independence and self-reliance to total surrender (“dziecięctwo Boże” - childlike dependence on God), embraced daily crosses, offered her suffering, and became a quiet witness.
Her writings are not abstract theology but practical guidance for anyone seeking the same living union.
Her story is an invitation to move beyond inherited faith, religious routine, or secondhand testimony into a living relationship with Christ.
In the grey, oppressive Poland of the 1980s marked by martial law, economic crisis, atheist propaganda, and widespread cultural Catholicism - such a radical, all-consuming encounter was anything but easy. Decades of “letni katolicyzm” (lukewarm, cultural Catholicism) made radical change socially awkward.
It demanded courage, honesty about her past emptiness, and the willingness to let Jesus reorder every part of her ordinary life in a communist block apartment. Admitting spiritual emptiness and surrendering control was painful. True conversion demanded renouncing “samodzielność” (self-reliance), which Jesus repeatedly called one of the greatest obstacles in her writings.
Turning inward to a demanding, all-consuming relationship with Christ, including embracing suffering and hidden stigmata-like pain, went against the natural desire for comfort and stability.
Yet that is precisely why her testimony is so compelling today. If Jesus could break through decades of spiritual mediocrity and the heavy atmosphere of a godless regime to meet a simple Polish teacher, He can certainly meet you right where you are, in your own routines, doubts, and daily struggles.
The Samaritan woman ran back to her town saying, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” Alicja’s writings whisper the same urgent invitation: Come and encounter Him personally. He is waiting for you too.
Prayer: Encounter Jesus Personally - A Well Within Every Woman
Holy Spirit,
Lead me to the well again. To that sacred place in the heart where truth waits, where longing and love meet.
Let me come, like Photini, with questions, with weariness, with hope, having heard of Jesus from others, but now ready to meet Him for myself.
In this space, I lay down the jar of my distractions, my defences, my doubts.
And I listen.🌸🌿💛
🌿 Invitation to the Heart
This is the encounter we were made for: a faith that is personally experienced, a grace that transforms from within, and a relationship with Jesus that speaks directly to the heart. It is the journey from simply hearing about Him to truly knowing Him.
Photini lives on in every woman who dares to come to the well and stays long enough to be seen.
Let every reflection here be a doorway. Let every story be a stirring. Let every word be an invitation to personally encounter the Saviour of the world.
Have you ever felt unseen, misread, or underestimated?
Photini reminds us that Jesus sees deeper. He calls women into purpose, witness, and spiritual authority, then and now.
What jar is He asking you to leave behind?
Reflection: My Own Encounter with Jesus - A Well Within
Where is my well? The place I return to when I’m thirsty for more?
What jar do I carry that needs to be set down to truly encounter Jesus?
Have I ever moved from hearing about Him to really knowing Him? What did that moment look like?
If Photini's story moved you, explore other journeys of faith and transformation in the Letters to Serena and Letters to Cassia series. Each letter is a well waiting for you to draw deeper.
📣 Share this post, tag a friend, leave a comment, and spread the word about the first forgotten apostle. Her voice deserves to be heard again.
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