"Mystical and salutary is this number, forty. For when in the beginning the iniquity of man covered the face of the earth, God, dissolving the clouds of heaven for the space of this number of days, covered the whole earth with a flood. You see then already in this time the Mystery is put before us in Figure. For as it then rained for forty days, to cleanse the world, so now does it also. Yet the deluge of those days must be called a mercy; in that through it iniquity was crushed, and justness upheld. For it took place out of mercy: to deliver the just, and that the wicked might no longer sin. We see clearly it was through mercy it came; as a sort of baptism, in which the face of the earth was renewed: that is, so that man who wallowed in the dreadful sin of abandoned men might come to the grace in the dwelling of Noah, and so that he who was then an abode of iniquity, might become a dwelling of holiness.
The Flood of those days was, as I say, a Figure of baptism. For that was then prefigured which is now fulfilled; that is, just as when the fountains of water overflowed, iniquity was imperilled, and justness alone reigned: sin was swept into the abyss, and holiness upraised to heaven. Then, as I said, that was prefigured which now is fulfilled in Christ's Church. For as Noah was saved in the Ark, while the iniquity of men was drowned in the Flood, so by the waters of baptism the Church is borne close to heaven, all the superstitions of idols overthrown, and the faith reigns on earth which came forth from the Ark of the Saviour.
Holy and dedicated is this time of forty days, which immediately from the beginning began to divide the just from the unjust; and by a kind of judgement separate the good from the bad. And this takes place even in our time of forty days. For in these forty days the good are divided from the bad: that is, the chaste from the unchaste, the temperate from the intemperate, the Christian from the heathen. The wicked, as I say, are separated from the good: that is, the sinner from the just man, the devil from the saint, the heretic from the faithful. For those others are lost, as in the Flood, in the disaster of this world, while the Church alone, with all its virtues, is like the Ark sustained above the deep.
And we tell you that they alone shall escape who find shelter in the bosom of the threefold Ark of the Faith. For threefold is the Ark of the Church: since it contains within it the Mystery of the Trinity. For when the Scripture relates that the Ark had a middle and a third storey, it is showing us that the Church is adorned by the threefold Presence of the Trinity. And so like Noah we announce to you the coming end of the world, and we warn all men to take refuge in this House."
CALL TO ACTION: Heed the signs of the times and take refuge without delay in the ark of Christ's Church.
Source: Quote from "The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers" (St. Maximus' Sermon for the third Sunday of Lent, "The Time of Lent"), Volume II, pages 93-94; Henry Regnery Company (copyright 1958); Imprimatur: E. Morrogh Bernard, Vic. Gen., Westmonasterii; Nihil Obstat: Hubertus Richards, S.T.L., L.S.S., Censor Deputatus
Photo by Zoltan Tasi