“Then the LORD said to Noah: Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone in this generation have I found to be righteous before me.” (Genesis 7:1)
Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:
But a deeper meaning leads us to believe that the strength of the mind in the soul and the soul in the body is what the father of a family is in his house. What the mind is in the soul, the soul is in the body. If the mind is certain, the house is safe; the soul is safe if the soul is uninjured; the flesh also is uninjured. A temperate mind restrains every passion, controls the senses, rules the words. Therefore God justly says to the righteous, “Go into,” that is, go into yourself, into your mind, in the ruling part of your soul. Salvation is there, the rudder is there; outside the deluge rages, outside there is danger. In truth if you have been inside, you are safe outside too, because when the mind is the straightforward guide of the self, the thoughts are righteous, the actions are righteous. If no vice obscures the mind, the thoughts are trustworthy.” (On Noah, 11)
Collect
O God,
Who teach us that you abide
in hearts that are just and true,
grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace
as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Who teach us that you abide
in hearts that are just and true,
grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace
as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
