While I was in central Georgia, filming the Flannery O’Connor episode of my “Pivotal Players” series, I saw a sign on the outside of a church that would have delighted the famously prickly Catholic author: “All sinners are welcome!” I thought it was a wonderfully Christian spin on the etiquette of welcome that is so pervasive in our culture today.
The Church is the New Ark. As Noah led the animals and his family into the ark to save them from the flood, so we have been led into the ark of the Church for safekeeping until this boat reaches its final destination, Heaven. The flood is the world outside. Sometimes the waves lap, and sometimes they come crashing against the ark. But they have never overwhelmed her. They have never – even now – capsized her. She cannot be capsized.