“And God remembered Noe, and all the living creatures, and all the cattle which were with him in the ark, and brought a wind upon the earth, and the waters were abated. The fountains also of the deep, and the flood gates of heaven were shut up, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters returned from off the earth going and coming: and they began to be abated after a hundred and fifty days. And the ark rested in the seventh month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia. And the waters were going and decreasing until the tenth month: for in the tenth month, the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.”
God did not forget Noah, for He says through the prophet: “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee” (Isaias 49:15), but here the covenantal bond that they had forged begins showing its effects, that is, God’s faithfulness. The wind that was upon the earth is interpreted as “spirit,” because a literal wind having the power to drain waters would render the oceans dry, therefore this is a look into the flood narrative as a mirror of Genesis 1, a recreation story: “And the spirit of God moved over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). As the waters recede gradually, as this is God’s usual way of operating: “By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, till thou be increased, and dost possess the land” (Exodus 23:30), dry land appears: “Let the waters that are under the heaven, be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear” (Genesis 1:9), a place upon which Noah and his family are to walk and live. With all the villains of divine love removed, Noah and the others are free to walk in this way of the Lord without constraint, breathing fresh air and restored to a place of holy leisure. This is symbolic, Theophila, of the removal of sin by grace, for your soul, once polluted with what was passing or even sinful, kept your mind small, warped, and tied to the ground, is now loosed and free to love and consider the highest things, those pertaining to God: “Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we are delivered” (Psalm 123:7), and the Lord has freed you to seek love and knowledge of Him. This is typified by the parable of the mustard seed, for the Gospel message has spread into such richness of philosophy, theology, devotions, and methods of prayer that it is the tree into which you can fly: “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:31-32). This is what is indicated by the name “Armenia,” which means “high land,” for rather than settling your boat on the earth, you can be carried to the heights of the mountains of thought in what the Church teaches, and surpass even this by a loving connection with Jesus. Now, all suffering comes to an end, Theophila, and on occasion it is used to cleanse the palate of the soul from things it once found tasteful, for in glimpsing its end through affliction, it realizes the triviality of what it had fastened itself upon: “Forsake childishness, and live, and walk by the ways of prudence” (Proverbs 9:6), instead walking upon the fresh ground of a love well cultivated: “The way of life, to him that observeth correction: but he that forsaketh reproofs goeth astray” (Proverbs 10:17). Thus are the ends affliction typified by the ceasing of the waters, with their effect not necessarily shining through immediately, but as the water of their aches fade, the beauty of their carving comes through: “The joints of thy thigh are like jewels, that are made by the hand of a skilful workman” (Canticle 7:1). There is then a poetic significance to the one hundred fifty days in which the ark was on the waters, and the revealing of the mountains and abating of the waters, for this mirrors the events of the events of the flood itself, allowing the poetic nature of the Scriptures to come through to the eye that looks: “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live: I will sing to my God while I have my being” (Psalm 103:33). While the numbering can sound repetitive and choppy, these sections can be read with an eye towards a sort of movement down into the depths by the flood and an ascending back to normalcy as the ark returns and Noah exits, which are mirrored with beautiful precision. With this can be seen the poetic ordering of God through one’s life, His movements towards you that He may draw you into His love, realizing all of one’s life is a love poem directed to God.