9 FEBRUARY – FRIDAY OF SEXAGESIMA WEEK

Lesson – Genesis x. 1–6; xi. 1–8

These are the generations of the sons of Noah: Sem, Cham, and Japheth: and unto them sons were born after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Thubal, and Mosoch, and Thiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ascenez and Riphath and Thogorma. And the sons of Javan: Elisa and Tharsis, Cetthim and Dodanim. By these were divided the islands of the Gentiles in their lands, every one according to his tongue and their families in their nations. And the sons of Cham: Chus, and Mesram, and Phuth, and Canaan.

And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same speech. And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar and dwelt in it. And each one said to his neighbour: “Come, let us make brick, and bake them with fire.” And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar. And they said: “Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of Adam were building. And He said: “Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed. Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

God chastises the world by the Deluge, but he is faithful to the promise made to our First Parents that the head of the Serpent should be crushed. The human race has to be preserved, therefore, until the time will come for the fulfilment of this promise. The Ark gives shelter to the just Noah and to his family. The angry waters reach even to the tops of the highest mountains, but the frail yet safe vessel rides peacefully on the waves. When the day fixed by God will come, they that dwell in this Ark will once more tread the Earth, purified as it then will be, and God will say to them as heretofore to our First Parents: “Increase, and multiply, and fill the Earth” (Genesis ix. 1).

Mankind, then, owes its safety to the Ark! O saving Ark that was planned by God Himself and sailed unhurt amid the universal wreck! But if we can thus bless this contemptible wood (Wisdom x. 4), how fervently should we not love that other Ark of which Noah’s was but the figure, and which for now [two thousand] years has been saving and bringing men to their God? How fervently should we not bless that Church, the Spouse of our Jesus, out of which there is no salvation, and in which we find that Truth which delivers us from error and doubt (John viii. 32) that Grace which purifies the heart, and that Food which nourishes the soul and fits her for immortality!

O sacred Ark! You are inhabited, not by one family alone, but by people of every nation under the sun. Ever since that glorious day when our Lord launched you in the sea of this world, you have been tossed by tempests, yet never wrecked. You will reach the eternal shore, witnessing, by your unworn vigour and beauty, to the divine guidance of the Pilot who loves you both for your own sake, and for the work you are doing for His glory. It is by you that He peoples the world with His elect, and it is for them that He created the world (Matthew xxiv. 22), When He is angry, He remembers mercy (Habacuc iii. 2) because of you, for it is through you that He has made His covenant with mankind.

Venerable Ark, be our refuge in the deluge. When Rome’s great Empire that was drunk with the blood of the Martyrs (Apocalypse xvii. 6) sank beneath the invasion of the Barbarians, the Christians were safe because sheltered by you. The waters slowly subsided and the race of men that had fled to you for protection, though conquered according to the flesh, was victorious by the spirit. Kings who till then had been haughty despots and barbarians kissed reverently the hand of the slave who now was his Pastor and baptised him. New people sprang up and, with the Gospel as their Law, began their glorious career in those very countries which the Caesars had degraded and forfeited.

When the Saracen invasion came, sweeping into ruin the Eastern world and menacing the whole of Europe which would have been lost had not the energy of your sons repelled the infidel horde, was it not within you, O Ark of salvation, that the few Christians took refuge, who had resisted schism and heresy and who, while the rest of their brethren apostatised from the faith, still kept alive the holy flame? Under your protection they are even now perpetuating, in their unfortunate countries, the traditions of Faith until the divine Mercy will bring happier times and themselves be permitted to multiply, as did of old the sons of Sem, in that land once so glorious and holy.

Oh happy we, dear Church of God, that are sheltered within you, and protected by you against that wild sea of anarchy which the sins of men have let loose on our Earth! We beseech our Lord that He check the tempest with that word of His omnipotence: “Thus far you will come, and no further, and here will you break your swelling waves” (Job xxxviii. 11). But if it be decreed by His Divine Justice that it prevail for a time, we know that it cannot reach such as dwell in you. Of this happy number are we. In your peaceful bosom, dear Mother, we find those true riches, the riches of the soul, of which no violence can deprive us (Matthew vi. 19). The life you give us is the only real life. Our true Fatherland is the kingdom formed by you. Keep us, O Ark of our God! Keep us, and all that are dear to us, and shelter us beneath your roof until the deluge of iniquity be passed away (Psalm lvi. 2). When the Earth, purified by its chastisements, will once more receive the Seed of the Divine Word which produces the Children of God, those among us whom you will not have led to our eternal home will then venture forth and preach to the world the principles of authority and law, of family and social rights: those sacred principles which came from Heaven, and which you, O Holy Church, are commissioned to maintain and teach even to the end of time.