Noah: The Eve of the Deluge, is a masterpiece of the British painter, John Linnell who draws on the biblical story of Noah’s ark in which God orders Noah to build a ship to harbor his family and animals from the Great Flood. The English poet John Milton (1608-1674) also addressed the story in his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), a passage from which Linnell included alongside his painting at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1848:
When lo! a wonder strange!
Of every beast, and bird, and insect small,
Came sevens and pairs, and entered in, as taught
Their order: last the sire, and his three sons,
With their four wives; and God made fast the door.
Meanwhile the south wind rose, and with black wings
Wide hovering, all the clouds together drove
From under Heaven. (Book XI)
Linnell’s painting represents the debate at that time between theologians and scientists over the accuracy of biblical sources. But in today’s reading, Luke uses the story of Noah as the pretext for Jesus to send a message about the Kingdom and the End-Time. The exhortation using the story of Lot’s wife is unique to Luke. According to the Book of Genesis, Lot’s wife turned back toward what was left behind. In his Gospel, Luke tries to link the story with the loss of life due to the desire for possessions. Luke uses the term peripoeien, which means “hold life as a possession” to describe how we can hold on to something that we consider valuable for us.
St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote that the purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is “to overcome oneself and to order one’s life without the influence of disordered affections.” One should understand the Spiritual Exercises from the lens of St. Thomas Aquinas in that God’s tremendous grace overflows into the reason and the will, which enables us to master our appetites. Ignatius then proposes that we must order our affections based on our human agency via agere contra and God’s sanctifying grace, the theological virtue and the aid of the Holy Spirit.
In our prayer today, we can reflect on the kinds of possessions that lead us into disordered affections. Often times, we might not realize that our disordered affections can take many different forms; not only in the pursuit of material wealth or comforts, but also reputation or prestige. For instance, we might exclude someone because we want to maintain the prestige of our group. The bottom line for St. Ignatius is that “disordered affections” are anything that keep us from being free to follow God’s will. In your prayer today, talk to Jesus about the attachments in your mind and heart that are keeping you from being free to follow Him. Try to imagine what Jesus will say to your disordered affections.