Noe with his family go into the ark. The deluge overflows the earth.
The mind is the ruling part of the soul and needs to be temperate in order to control the senses, words and actions according to righteousness.
“But a deeper meaning leads us to believe that the strength of the mind in the soul and the soul in the body is what the father of a family is in his house. What the mind is in the soul, the soul is in the body. If the mind is certain, the house is safe; the soul is safe if the soul is uninjured; the flesh also is uninjured. A temperate mind restrains every passion, controls the senses, rules the words. Therefore God justly says to the righteous, “Go into,” that is, go into yourself, into your mind, in the ruling part of your soul. Salvation is there, the rudder is there; outside the deluge rages, outside there is danger. In truth if you have been inside, you are safe outside too, because when the mind is the straightforward guide of the self, the thoughts are righteous, the actions are righteous. If no vice obscures the mind, the thoughts are trustworthy.”(4) -St. Ambrose
The ark prefigured the church with not all being equally pleasing to the Lord; yet, the clean did not abandon the unclean before the time given by God.
“Let us recognize that the ark prefigured the church. Let us be the clean beasts in it. Yet let us not refuse to allow the unclean ones to be carried in it with us until the end of the deluge. They were together in the ark, but they were not equally pleasing to the Lord as a savor of sacrifice, for after the deluge, Noah offered sacrifice to God of the clean, not of the unclean. But the ark was not on that account abandoned before the time by any of the clean because of the unclean.”(4) -St. Augustine
The ark symbolizes Christ’s salvation wrought through the wood of the cross; gaining salvation for the nations.
“Christ was also represented in Noah, and the world, in that ark. For why were all living creatures shut up in that ark except to signify all the nations? For God did not lack the capability of creating anew every species of living things. For when no creatures were in existence, did he not say, “Let the earth bring forth” and the earth brought forth? So from the same source as he made them then, he could remake them. God made them by a word, so God could remake them by a word.”(4) -St. Augustine
The flood symbolizes the Lord’s baptism; heavenly washing in which the wickedness of sinners was removed and righteousness preserved.
“But let us see where this most sacred number of forty days had its beginning. We read first in the Old Testament that in the time of Noah, when criminal wickedness had seized the whole human race, torrents of water poured forth from the opened floodgates of heaven for just as many days. In a kind of mysterious image of Quadragesima, this inundation of the earth refers not so much to a flood as to baptism. This was clearly a baptism in which the wickedness of sinners was removed and Noah’s righteousness preserved. For this reason, then, the Lord has given us forty days now as well in imitation of that time, so that for this number of days, while the heavens are opened, a celestial rain of mercy might pour upon us and, with the flood, the water of the saving washing might enlighten us in baptism and—as was the case then—the wickedness of our sins might be quenched in us by the streams of water and the righteousness of our virtues preserved. For the very same thing is at issue with regard to Noah and in our own day: baptism is a flood to the sinner and a consecration to the faithful; by the Lord’s washing, righteousness is preserved and unrighteousness is destroyed.”(4) -St. Maximus of Turin
The Lord loves righteousness and hates iniquity. The ark symbolizes the significance of the Catholic Church in our salvation.
“We read in the story of holy Noah how he miraculously escaped the flood which destroyed the impious by being preserved with his household in the ark. From this it is evident to everyone that the Lord who loves righteousness and hates iniquity knows how to deliver the pious from temptation and to punish the impious with the punishment they deserve…. Through spiritual understanding this same text is shown to be full of more sacred mysteries, when the ark is discerned to signify the catholic church; the water of the flood, baptism; the clean and unclean animals, those in the church both spiritual and carnal; the wood of the ark which was smooth and covered with pitch, the teachers who are stalwart as a result of their faith.”(4) -St. Bede
By the water of baptism, the true faith and the wood of the cross, it is shown that those who repent of their sins and keep watch in preparedness, shall escape the everlasting fire.
“When the sacred text states that the entire earth was inundated, as the water reached a height of twentythree feet above the highest mountains, it is evident that God was not speaking to your land [that is, Israel] in particular but to all those who are faithful to him, for whom he has arranged a restful haven in Jerusalem. All the signs that accompanied the flood prove my assertion. For by the expression ‘by water and faith and wood’ it is indicated that those who prepare themselves and repent of their sins shall escape the future judgment of God.”(4) -St. Justin Martyr
Women's Prayer Group In Christ 