Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Today's passage from St. John's Gospel, really the ending of the discourse on the bread of life,
is applied to, or can be applied to, our times as it could be applied to any other.
It's really very timeless.
When the people who heard our Lord speaking said,
this is a hard saying, who can accept it?
The gospel is the proclamation of the way to heaven,
and that way is straight and narrow, it's uphill, and it's rocky.
But our Lord himself has walked that road,
and he has transformed the burden of the cross into something that is light and sweet for those who have faith.
But it really is a matter of faith.
In Christ, it's a matter of believing him, believing God, and what he tells us.
Because sometimes what he has to tell us is hard, it's difficult.
It's not exactly what we want to believe, or it's not a standard by which we are inclined to live by,
unless we, in the first place, just ask our Lord very openly,
what is it you want me to do?
What is it that you want me to believe?
And what is it that you want?
And what is it that you want me to do?
And then if we get any answer from God, we should be satisfied.
But in the world today, we want to test God.
We want to get the answers we would like to hear.
And some of the Jews, when our Lord proclaimed the discourse on the bread of life,
didn't hear what they wanted to hear.
And so our Lord stuck to his guns and said, does this shock you?
And then turned to his disciples, are you going to leave also?
Our Lord was honest with us, forthright, and he told us what we needed to hear.
And in this case, while the doctrine of the Eucharist is difficult and can be misunderstood,
as it was misunderstood by them, they thought he was talking about cannibalism,
but they didn't open their hearts to him in the first place.
Well,
the doctrine might be hard in some respects.
It is really the presence of God in our midst.
It's the promise that he will remain always with us, never abandon us.
As we all know, we come here every morning before his altar and receive from his altar
the blessed sacrament because we know where the source is and we know where grace is.
And God has been good to us.
And so in the same way, the other doctrines,
which may be even harder to believe in, like the ban against contraception, for example,
nevertheless, God always tells us the truth because he knows the truth is good for us.
Ultimately, living by the truth gives God glory, and that's our reason for being here.
But if we would only listen to God, we would all be better off.
And so,
today we celebrate the feast of St. Athanasius,
who was one of the fathers of the church and who preached against the Arian heresy,
which basically denied the divinity of the second person of the Blessed Trinity and ultimately of Christ.
And he was living in a very difficult time.
He was exiled from his own diocese, I think, three times, maybe even more.
And it was all because he refused to compromise on the fact that he was a Christian.
And it was all because he refused to compromise on the fact that he was a Christian.
And it was all because he refused to compromise on the fact that he was a Christian.
And it was all because he refused to compromise on the fact that he was a Christian.
The Arians were willing to go so far to compromise.
They were willing to say,
well, you know, the second person of the Blessed Trinity,
the Word, is like the Father.
The Son is like the Father,
but not exactly of the same substance with the Father.
And St. Athanasius wouldn't compromise.
That's why today in our creed we say,
one in being with the Father.
A better translation would be one in substance,
or the same substance with the Father.
But,
But St. Athanasius fought for the truth, and people didn't like it, and he was persecuted
for it.
And if he hadn't have fought for it, the faith would have been lost, and ultimately we would
believe that Jesus was like any other man, and he's of course not, he's God.
And St. Athanasius persevered in his quest, in the mission that God had given him, in
his vocation, and we say today that it was St. Athanasius against the world, because
most of the bishops at that time were Aryans.
He was pretty much alone, and sometimes we feel alone, and we find it difficult to follow
the faith and to cling to the words of Christ, but cling we must, be faithful we must, even
if the words are hard, even if the doctrine is hard, even if people try to whittle us
down.
And that's really what happens very often.
I give the example of Miss California, not because I approve of beauty pageants, but
people have heard about the story, and ultimately what people are angry about is not that she's
against same-sex marriage, but that she said anything at all, that she said what she believed
at all.
And this is the way the world is, that people get angry with us because of what we believe.
They get angry at us because we're willing to stand up and express it, and say, no, this
is wrong, homosexuality is a sin, homosexual acts are a sin, and gay marriage is not marriage.
People want us to just shut up and go away, and the followers of Christ cannot do that,
even if the sayings are hard, and even if those sayings—
get us into trouble. They got our Lord into trouble. They're surely going to get us into
trouble, but that is our lot. And we turn to our Lord in the Eucharist at the source of life,
and we find the strength that we need to persevere, to speak in charity as St. Athanasius did,
but to speak and to be firm and not to back down, not to compromise on what the truth is.
And so we ask St. Athanasius to intercede for us and grant us, obtain for us the grace
to persevere in our Christian Catholic vocation of bearing witness to Christ and to the truth.
And so we ask St. Athanasius to intercede for us and grant us the grace to persevere in our Christian Catholic vocation of bearing witness to Christ and to the truth.