Today is Feb. 19, Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time.
We read in Scripture at Mass, “He waited seven days more and again sent the dove out from the ark. In the evening the dove came back to him, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf!” (Gen 8:10-11).
When Noah sends out the dove after the 40 days of rain, he is not merely seeking dry land; he is searching for hope. He is looking for a future beyond the flood, for assurance that God’s justice had given way to mercy.
When the dove returns with an olive branch, it announces that the waters of destruction have receded; life is being restored. This is the promise of peace, a foretelling of God’s enduring covenant with humanity, a sign of reconciliation. As St. Augustine says, “Perpetual peace is indicated by the olive branch which the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark.”
The beginning of new life
Yet, the dove carries even deeper significance. When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove (Matthew 3:16). Just as the dove in Noah’s story signified the end of the flood and the beginning of new life, so too does the Holy Spirit usher in the new life of grace in Christ. “When the world falls into sin nothing but a flood of waters can cleanse it again,” writes St. Jerome. “But as soon as the foul bird of wickedness is driven away, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes to Noah as it came afterward to Christ in the Jordan and, carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world.” In baptism, we pass through the waters of death and emerge into the promise of eternal life, sealed with the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The olive branch the dove carried is not just a symbol of survival — it is a sign of our vocation. It beckons us to be peacemakers. As followers of Christ, we are called to carry the olive branch to others, to bring Christ’s peace to those weary from the storms of sin.
Let us pray,
O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
