Noah and Our Times

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of man? Jesus in this very important grave announcement begins by referring to Noah, and says it’ll be as in the days of Noah. Is the story of Noah truth? Or is it just an old myth?  There’s one who knows, of course, it’s the Lord Himself. And so, it’s striking to see in the New Testament, how the history of Noah is treated. There are many indications in the New Testament. I’ll read you one. This is from the second letter of St. Peter, first of all, he mentions those who scoff. He says, first of all, you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days, with scoffing, following their own passions and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the father’s fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation. Basically, it’s always been the same. And then St. Peter, contrasts that he says, They deliberately ignore this fact. So, he doesn’t say this story, this legend, this myth, he says, this fact that by the word of God, heavens existed long ago, and an Earth formed out of water, and by means of water, through which the world that then existed, was deluged with water, and perished. So, St. Peter is referring to that as a fact. And Jesus in the Gospel is applying that lesson to the times preceding the coming of the Son of Man. And St. Peter also does that in the same part of his letter where he says, by the same word of God, the heavens and earth, that now exist, have been stored up for fire, this time, not water, but fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. So, he says fire and he says, The Day of Judgment, precisely the Day of Judgment, is to distinguish between those who are guilty and those who are innocent, those who deserve punishment, and those who don’t ,he says that they have judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. So, he specifies it’s not the destruction of everyone. It’s the destruction of the evil persons. And so besides the particular judgment, which each person encounters at the moment of their passing from this life, this is talking about what is coming for the whole world. And so, I wanted at the beginning of this Advent, I think that just take a little bit of time today to reflect on what are we being taught by the history of Noah. So, what happened? So, there’s a great evil, that the world is extremely evil, and the Lord has decided that he needs to punish the evildoers and purify this dramatic purification, radical purification of the world. And the letter to the Hebrews says this, by faith, so by faith, emphasizing the importance of faith, by faith, Noah, being warned by God. So, God has given him a prophetic revelation of what is to come. Noah is being warned by God, because no, human could have known what was coming. It’s only God who can reveal it. And that’s one of the very important rules of prophetic graces, is to let us know something that we can’t know by just human abilities. And so, Noah is warned by God. And it goes on to say concerning events as yet unseen. So how does Noah react because many times God warns people, and they ignore His warning. But this is by faith, Noah took heed. That is, he didn’t do when God revealed this to him. It was his faith, which gave him the grace to accept and take heed to believe and respond. So took heed. And what he did was extreme and constructed an ark for the saving of his household, to save his household. And so, these preparations that Noah was making guided by God, were enormously expensive and difficult to build something like that, you know, especially if you weren’t, you know, if you weren’t the Pharaoh, but if you’re a normal person that would even if you’re a wealthy person, that would take extremely, that will take a long time to do that. And of course, it’s not something you can do in private, either. It’s not something you can do in your garage, you know, or in a basement. This is something that is very happening very publicly. And how do you explain to people what you’re doing? It can’t possibly be useful. You know, you’re building this boat, it’s so big, that there’s no way you can ever transport it to water. So, it’s just completely crazy. The idea is completely crazy. How do you explain to somebody why you’re doing this except to say, I think God wants me to do this? Well, why would God want you to do something like that? There has never been anything here, which would justify that and look back, you know, that, as they look back over history, there was never anything that could have justified this, as I say, could not possibly be useful. Unless something happened, which had never happened before. And that’s precisely what happened. Something that had never happened before. And so, this is also what is, what is this teaching us because oftentimes, our faith is calling us to do things which set us apart, which might seem crazy for the world, and which often require a lot of effort, and sacrifice, and perseverance. So that was the preparation, though was making and then that something completely unprecedented happened. And most of them weren’t prepared. And that’s what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel today. He says as,” in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.”  That is what He seems to be emphasizing is, the worst thing was not the flood. The worst thing was the sin. You could say there was like a flood of sin, a much more dangerous flood than water, a flood of sin, that was drowning everybody, almost everybody was drowned in in this flood of sin. And yet, that’s normal, it was the new normal. Just like so many things today are presented as well. This is the new normal, this is the new morality. But if the new morality is sin, it’s, it’s the old immorality. And so, there’s this flood of sin, and people are just going about their lives as normal. “Until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know” – again, this is Jesus Christ, the Word of God who, as of this knowledge is of all eternity, who is telling us this, “and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away. So, the many were completely unprepared.” And the danger again, the much greater danger than the flood, is the danger of dying, and mortal sin, and the danger of hell. And so, this was for those who trusted just in their own knowledge, trusted in their own abilities and their own intelligence. They could not receive this warning from the Lord. It was only those who listen to God. And that’s the key thing, the example Noah did. He had, he listened to God, He had faith in God, you know, here at the mission, we insist so much on faith, so that God can act and part of that being an openness to prophetic revelations that the Lord gives. And this is a great example of that. So, what was destruction and death for many people was the beginning of a new life for the Friends of God. It was a liberation from this swamp, of, of evil, that so many we’re living in, and it was a cleansing and renewal of all the world. So, it was death and destruction for those who were living and rejected God and living in wickedness, there was liberation and renewal for the friends of God who had listened. And the Book of Wisdom says, “God can save from every danger. For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft,” referring to Noah, that’s a beautiful phrase, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft. “And guided by your hand, left to the world, the seed of a new generation.” And there’s a very prophetic passage, then it says, “For blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes.” Blessed is the wood. So, this is referring first of all to the ark. But this also a prefiguration of another word, blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes. So, what is the Lord teaching us in this, here at the beginning of Advent, by this the account of Noah, I want to just mention three, three lessons. One, of course, is that only God knows the future. And so that should give us humility.  Because Jesus clearly saying that there will be great events coming at, we don’t know exactly when, but they will come in, which are completely beyond anything that’s ever happened. Here’s an example of Noah, but he’s talking about things which are even greater. And we’ve just been reading these past couple of weeks, the book, the book of the apocalypse of Revelation, and that’s a great example and there’s many other examples in scripture of the Lord, announcing events, which had never happened before. In fact, what we’re preparing to celebrate at a Christmas is something that had never happened before, which was God becoming man. So, there are, there are key moments in which God does things that are beyond any human expectation. And so only God knows the future, and this happened very suddenly, when it started to happen, it was too late. Noah’s preparations had to begin years ahead of time. And so many were not prepared. And as I said, it was destruction, for condemnation for many for the wicked and it was salvation and renewal for those who had been listening to the Lord. So that’s the first point is to only God knows the future. And the second point, then is listening to God. As the reading said, today, stay awake, you to also must be prepared. And he’s speaking to us today to stay awake and be prepared. And that’s why I think the Lord has wanted us to be so attentive to prophecy, to the prophetic words of the Lord speaking today. A lot of people, even just for human reasons, are concerned about the instability and fragility of our world. There are so many signs of that. And so, we feel it’s so many things are very, very fragile. And just all that happened during COVID was a clear example of that. And so, some people are making material preparations. For in case things get very bad, and even the US government has encouraged people to do that. And that can be helpful. It can be prudent and especially if we do it in a spirit of charity, trying to be prepared to be able to help not just our own, but also others. It can be very good, but more important, even the material preparations, are the spiritual preparations. And that’s the third point of faith. What faith causes us to do to take refuge in Jesus? Because the Fathers of the Church saw the Ark as a preparation of Jesus and those words, blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes. I felt that was a prefiguration of the wood of the Cross. Many you know that we have here the blessing of having a tiny little splinter relic of the True Cross. Blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes. And they saw that when Jesus’ heart was opened, His Sacred Heart was opened by the lance on the Cross. They saw that as a reference to the door on the ark. So that Jesus’ Sacred Heart is the ark in which we can take refuge, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate heart of our Blessed Mother, as the ark in which he is inviting us to take refuge in these times, a spiritual refuge. And so, in conclusion, as we begin this Advent, to summarize the message in one word, that word would be Jesus, the Lord of history, the truth, and our Savior. And so, with our Blessed Mother, in these very troubling times that we’re living, in which the world is once again, and our country seems awash in a flood of sin, which seems to be rising, rising and engulfing everything, and with sin, all sorts of all sorts of destruction and dangerous, material, dangerous but especially spiritual, dangers. It’s an opportunity as we begin this new advent of 2022, to take refuge in our Lord Jesus. And the Mass is an opportunity for us. Every time we celebrate Mass, and especially this Mass today is an opportunity to spiritually take refuge in the heart of Jesus, as we prepare to receive Him in the Holy Eucharist. And, as Mother Magdalene mentioned, at the at the beginning of Mass, there is this special prayer which can be our prayer, the special invocation, all during Advent. In this difficult time of human history, Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Noah
Matthew 24:37-44
2 Peter:3