Message from Fr. James - April 19, 2026

God’s peaceful covenant with Noah

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

God saves us through covenants. A covenant is a relationship. It is a relationship of total trust. The heart, mind, and soul can rest in this kind of trust. Covenants have conditions in order to maintain the unity of the relationship. Covenants have consequences if the relationship is betrayed. God used covenants to save us throughout history because covenants are such powerful relationships.

Fr. Dave announced that our Giving Tuesday 2025 project would create an art gallery of God’s covenants. From Sacred Scripture, we chose to paint eight covenants between God and us. The history of our salvation is made in God’s covenants with Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the tribes of Israel, King David, and, finally, the new and eternal covenant with Jesus Christ. Each of these covenants promised a relationship between God and human kind. Each one expresses God’s love for you. Each covenant saves you from death and sin. The painting of the third covenant, with Noah, is now hanging in the parish hall below the church.

“God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ‘I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood.’ God added, ‘This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you: I set my bow in the clouds’” (see Genesis 9:8-13). Peace be with you! The rainbow is a sign of peace. So is the olive branch carried by the dove. God’s covenant of peace is revealed in Noah’s name, which means “rest”.

The sign of Noah’s covenant is the rainbow of seven colors. The “new and eternal covenant” with Jesus Christ has seven sacraments, which reveal through material creation all the beauty of God’s love. Noah used an ark of wood to make his covenant. Jesus used a cross of wood. That wood is our only hope of safe passage from this tormented life to the eternal shores of heaven. As the ancient hymn proclaims, “O crux ave, spes unica (Hail O Cross, our only hope!)”. In this covenant, God promised to sustain you through your scariest difficulty. Jesus said, “My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it.” Down to our day we “offer each other the sign of peace” in the Mass. Whenever you confess your sins to a priest, you will hear, “God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace.” This is how God continues his peaceful covenant with Noah in your life.

In Christ,

Fr. James