Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Gospel 

John 14:7-14

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to Jesus,
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Jesus continues to explain to the disciples of the oneness of the Father and himself. A timely discussion as today is the Memorial of Saint Athanasius who was a defender of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

 

Throughout scripture we are told of the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and saints like St Athanasius have championed this message. But many other sajnts and church fathers stressed Jesus’ divinity and the trinity including St. Hilary of Poitiers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. Many others took up the cause.

 

It would be difficult to study the early fathers and not understand the divinity of Jesus and the trinity. It would be difficult to study the bible and not understand why we ourselves are offered resurrection because of his divinity.

 

Why does this matter? Because as St Athanasius has said, if Jesus wasn’t divine, then the resurrection didn’t happen for only God has power over death and so mankind has no hope for eternal life ourselves.  If Jesus was only human he did not rise and so he did not defeat death for us and we have no eternal life available to us.

 

So while today’s Gospel can sound like Jesus continues to say the same thing over and over it’s an important concept he needed the disciples to understand. That he and God the Father are one. Because it makes all the difference in the world.

 

We too need to understand this base foundation of belief and why it’s important.

 

Debates about divinity of Jesus are debates about our own eternal life.

 

So we must always study scripture. Study the church fathers. So we will have a firm understanding of why we do what we do. Why we believe what we do. It should not be because someone has told us it is true. Our faith should be built on study and knowledge of Jesus Christ as out forth in scripture and church teaching.