Our Venerable Father and Confessor Procopius the Decapolitan (716-40)
Great Fast Day 16. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
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Genesis 7:1-5
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
After much preparation the time has come for Noah and his family to enter the Ark, whose express role is to save life. What “life” had become was so toxic, evil and filled with death that the Lord regretted His creation and needed to begin again. And so, this family boards a giant boat in the middle of the desert and prepares by gathering all the animals male and female together.
We see this pattern, “male and female” repeated continually throughout this short passage. God made them complete with two sexes. God makes us complete with two sexes. Our life finds fulfilment and purpose from the deep truth that we are not complete in and of ourselves. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You” was the famous realization St. Augustine uttered in his Confessions. Our lack of completion finds its ultimate completion in Christ.
The family is a school of this love. It is interesting to note that the same word for “ark” here in the Hebrew is also used for the “basket” which carries Moses from death at the hands of the soldiers to life. We have two arks in our world which carry us from the death which surrounds us- the Church and the family- the Domestic Church. Throughout this Holy time of Lent let us continue our training in true love by nurturing our families and identifying our desires and joining them to Christ, who purifies them through His cross and Resurrection!