Is it important to believe all that the Church teaches on matters of faith and morals? To hold right belief, orthodoxy, as well as to practice right conduct, orthopraxy? Upon the Feast of Saint Athanasius, May 2, Father Pieter vanRooyen, pastor of Saint Joseph in Ypsilanti, replies with a resounding: Yes!
Athanasius (295-373) was the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt and lived at a time when the heresy of Arianism was sweeping through the Christian world. Arianism was the creation of the 4th century Alexandrian presbyter, Arius, who proposed that Jesus Christ is not truly divine but, instead, is a created being. Despite persecution, including being exiled five times, Saint Athanasius was tireless in his defense of Catholic orthodoxy which, eventually, prevailed. Deo gratias.
Father vanRooyen, who is also the Director of Graduate Seminarians at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, now explains why sound doctrine is crucial to the Christian life. He writes:
Near the end of his life, Paul wrote: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Why should we “keep the faith”? Can we know the truth about God? Aren’t we like the “blind men” in the famous parable, who describe different parts of an elephant without realizing they’re all speaking about the same animal (In the parable one blind man holds the tail and declares: “an elephant is small and hairy like a mouse”; another man holds the trunk and says: “an elephant is long and thin like a snake”; yet another, touching its leg, replies: “an elephant is thick and strong like a tree!”) — Can we really know the truth about God? Does it matter what we believe?
Yes! Because we are not just blind men groping in the dark—God has spoken! God has come to us and revealed himself! God speaks to us and he even challenges us — indeed, he sometimes tells us things we don’t want to hear because God is real! He is not a “cookie-cutter god” made in our image and likeness! The real God is other than us! We “keep the faith” because the mere product of our minds cannot save us! Only the real God, who has spoken to us in the Scripture, and has entered history, become man, and died and rose to destroy sin and death, only he can save us!
Saint Athanasius, pray for us!