Gen 8, 14-22 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD

Genesis 8

(Gen 8, 14-22) Then Noah built an altar to the LORD

[14] In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. [15] Then God said to Noah: [16] "Go out of the ark, together with your wife and your sons and your sons' wives. [17] Bring out with you every living thing that is with you - all bodily creatures, be they birds or animals or creeping things of the earth - and let them abound on the earth, breeding and multiplying on it." [18] So Noah came out, together with his wife and his sons and his sons' wives; [19] and all the animals, wild and tame, all the birds, and all the creeping creatures of the earth left the ark, one kind after another. [20] Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird, he offered holocausts on the altar. [21] When the LORD smelled the sweet odor, he said to himself: "Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the desires of man's heart are evil from the start; nor will I ever again strike down all living beings, as I have done. [22] As long as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, Summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

(CCC 701) The dove. At the end of the flood, whose symbolism refers to Baptism, a dove released by Noah returns with a fresh olive-tree branch in its beak as a sign that the earth was again habitable (Cf. Gen 8:8-12). When Christ comes up from the water of his baptism, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, comes down upon him and remains with him (Cf. Mt 3:16 and parallels). The Spirit comes down and remains in the purified hearts of the baptized. In certain churches, the Eucharist is reserved in a metal receptacle in the form of a dove (columbarium) suspended above the altar. Christian iconography traditionally uses a dove to suggest the Spirit. (CCC 2099) It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice" (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 10, 6: PL 41, 283). (CCC 2100) Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit...." (PS 51:17). The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor (Cf. Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20). Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice" (Mt 9:13; 12:7; Cf. Hos 6:6). The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation (Cf. Heb 9:13-14). By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.