S'Ale.
Passages from St. John's Gospel,
such as the one we read about today,
in which our Lord speaks of his relationship to the Father.
Our characteristic of the Gospel of John,
it is the, I'd say, the deep or the high theology
of the Incarnation and of the Blessed Trinity.
That's why St. John is represented by the eagle,
because his theology soars.
Very clear from St. John's Gospel that our Lord declares his divinity,
and his equality with the Father,
and the subordination of his sacred humanity to his divinities.
He's come into the world, he's become the Incarnate Word for our salvation,
and he is sent by the Father to reveal that Word,
to reveal his Father to all of us.
And this is what makes us,
and this is what makes us,
and this is what makes us,
what makes us Christians,
what makes us Catholics,
what makes us proclaimers of the good news,
that we believe Jesus is the Son of God,
and in him alone is our salvation.
And this is because he is equal to the Father.
He is one with the Father,
although distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit.
And this truth,
this became a matter of controversy in the early church in various ways at various times,
and was challenged by various heresies,
because it was early on in the life of the church,
and as theologians and saints thought their way through the scriptures,
and the proclamations of our Lord in St. John's Gospel,
for example,
this truth about the person of Jesus Christ,
and his centrality to history,
became a point of contention.
Everything hung on it,
and those who aren't willing to believe it came up with their own ideas.
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Athanasius
who sometimes is known as Athanasius Contramundum,
Athanasius the Great.
Athanasius the Great,
against the world because he was the
Bishop of Alexandria for 45 years and he spent
about 17 of those years in exile
over five different periods. He came back to his diocese
and then was sent away again and it was because of the Roman
Empire for the most part that was being used as a tool
of the Aryan heretics. So there was
a fight in his own day against the power of the state, a sort
of religious liberty struggle, not
dissimilar to the one in which we find ourselves
today. But St. Athanasius was not willing to
compromise on the doctrine of Christ's divinity,
not willing to deviate
one jot or tittle from the truth which Christ
had revealed and he
would
be willing to put himself on the line and to proclaim
the truth of the gospel publicly and in the face of great opposition.
Opposition from the majority of bishops around him,
opposition from the Roman Empire and the Roman state.
St. Athanasius remained firm against the world,
against everybody you might say,
the vast majority of people around him and he paid the price,
paid the price, the Christian price, of giving witness to the truth,
which is martyrdom. We refer to those who offer their lives to Christ
and shed their blood for him, martyrs, which means in the Greek,
witnesses, witness. You know, if we witness to Christ,
if we give testimony to him, we will earn the reward of our testimony.
Which is to be a martyr, a witness.
Two things are really the same thing.
And they allow us to identify with Christ.
This is a great paradox of our faith that the reward of our fidelity
is very often the eighth beatitude,
which is that we suffer as Christ suffers,
that we are rewarded with persecution and with heaven.
And with the providence of God.
But our Lord speaks of persecution as a blessing.
It is a beatitude.
And that is something that we have to recognize in our hearts,
even though sometimes, you know, from a perfectly reasonable point of view,
it's something undesirable.
It's something that we find and react against as an injustice.
And yet, from a prayerful point of view,
from the point of view, the perspective of faith,
it is a blessing.
So, in these difficult times, we can call upon St. Athanasius as a patron.
And as an example, of course, someone to whom we can have recourse
in our own difficulties, whatever they may be.
And we can call upon him.
We can ask him that we may remain steadfast and faithful to the Lord,
no matter what the cost.
Recognizing that suffering is not always a punishment for our sins.
Sometimes, believe it or not, and this is, you know,
at the heart of the Christian message, the wisdom of the cross,
suffering is a reward for our faith.
It's a reward for our fidelity.
And if we offer it out of love and allow it to transform our way of thinking and acting,
then we will understand that the Lord has blessed us rather than abandoned us.
And we learn these truths at the foot of this altar where Jesus offers himself for our life
and gives himself to us as our food,
to nourish us, and to bring us into everlasting life.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for watching.