Living the Armour of God

Hello Zeteo Community,

Today is Thursday, although it feels like it must at least be Friday. Hopefully you all are having an amazing week as we close off this year's chapter of summer. It is swelteringly hot here, I am dreaming of the lake we stayed at last week - which we never swan in, as it was rainy and overcast the entire time.

I made the decision to write two blogs each month on the topic of the previous Zeteo. However, Father Carlos' talk was so rich with material, that I feel the need to stretch it into a third post which I will have up next week.

Thank you so much for reading, and following this blog. Please share on your Facebook pages, and leave comments if you found anything particularly interesting, or would like a clarification. 

God bless,

Olivia Fischer

Week 2: Living the Armour of God

"Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." 

Ephesians 6: 13-17

Those of you who have been to a Search, or spent time with my mom or Tina, have probably heard the term, "Are you naked?" Of course, this does not refer to physical nakedness, but asks the question, "Have you put on the armour of God today?"

For me, putting on the armour of God meant reading off the list: Belt of truth, check. Breastplate of righteousness, check. Footwear of zeal, check. And so forth. If I was feeling particularly motivated that day, it even included reading a prayer I was once given on the armour of God. Just because I forget to mentally equip myself with these pieces of armour each day, does that mean that I am, by default, naked? 

Father Carlos challenged my idea of the Armour of God by saying that Saint Maximilian Kolbe wore the armour of God. Does this mean that when he woke up that morning at Auschwitz, he mentally put on the helmet, the belt, the footwear of God? Possibly, but I doubt it. Of course, this mental donning of the armour of God is not a bad reminder, I just challenge a deeper understanding of what God was offering to us when he gave us this armour.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, like many of the saints, lived the armour of God. Like I mentioned in the last blog, we live each day in a battle arena - this is why we need to be equipped in the armour of God. In Ephesians this battle is explained:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God,so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." 

Ephesians 6: 10-12

We are fighting a battle against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. How can we be soldiers in this battle without the proper armour? At the Family Life Conference we did a skit on the armour of God for the 9-11 year old tent. We sent a guy into a Lacrosse game without the proper equipment - obviously he was unable to play the game properly, and got hurt. Lacrosse has specific equipment, the lacrosse stick, a helmet, guards for your lower back, arms, and shoulders. In order to be successful in this sport, you are going to need to suit up before the game.

God provided us with the proper armour, how are we going to wear it? How are we going to live it as Saint Maximilian Kolbe did?

Living The Armour of God

The first element we are told to put on, is the belt of truth. Satan is called the "father of lies", therefore, we need to combat the deception fed into our lives by knowing truth. Saint Maximilian Kolbe is quoted with saying, "no one in the world can change truth. What we can do, and should do, is seek truth, and when we have found it, to serve it." In order to seek truth as we must, we should read the Bible, and develop a daily prayer-life (which I will talk about in the next blog). Our daily prayer-life should immerse us in our faith - it can include learning about our faith in the Catechism or other religious books, praying the rosary, works of mercy, attending mass regularly - not just on Sundays, fasting, and offering up our sufferings. A life so tuned into our faith will show us truth and shower us with graces.

Secondly, we are told to wear the breastplate of righteousness, of integrity. The breastplate covers our vital organs, our hearts, our lungs. (This article explains the breastplate really well.) We are meant not to rely on our own righteousness, but on the righteousness of God. When His righteousness is protecting our hearts from false love, and our lungs from false air, we develop a purity that translates into how we live our lives; we become more righteous ourselves. 

Next we are instructed to have "our feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace." These shoes help us both defensively - to stand our ground, and offensively - to share the gospel with others. We need to attune ourselves to the Word of Christ, to His voice, so that we can stand firm in truth through temptation, and in our interactions with others. This way, we will not be lead astray, but will continue to walk in goodness. This is going to start sounding a little redundant, but in order to equip ourselves with this footwear, we must ready ourselves by reading the gospel and through our daily prayer-life.

Now we take up the shield of faith to extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one. Hebrews 11: 1 says, "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen." Faith is trusting in the goodness of God and his plan, even when we cannot see - like Noah faithfully building the ark. So many fiery darts are cast at us, leading us to doubt, to despair, to instant gratification that is not true or lasting, making it difficult to see truth. We are called to faith which assures us that God has a plan that demolishes the deception of doubt, despair, or instant gratification, though His way is sometimes hard for us to see or to understand. This is where faith - in things not seen, comes in. We cultivate this kind of faith through reading the bible and praying daily: fixing our eyes on Christ.

The helmet of salvation protects our intellect from corruption. In order to gain this protection we must learn about our faith, through, you guessed it, daily prayer and reading the gospel. This way, our faith permeates our thoughts so that we observe and understand the world through it. The way this article explains the helmet of salvation is: As we wear the helmet of salvation every day, our minds become more insulated against the suggestions, desires, and traps the enemy lays for us. We choose to guard our minds from excessive worldly influence and instead think on things that honor Christ (Philippians 4:8).

Lastly is the sword of the spirit which is the Word of the Lord. It seems God was trying to emphasize the importance of the gospel through every piece of the armour, culminating in the sword being the Word of the Lord. The gospel is one of our greatest weapons in this battle arena, not because it is a large book that is good for thumping people with, but because it is the surest way we can find His voice. God desires for us to read, to know, and to love the scriptures - without a love for this greatest of weapons, we are truly naked. Why are Protestants known for being able to quote the bible, with knowing it cover to cover, while Catholics are known for not knowing their way around the bible?

God seems to be repeating, over and over. Read my Word, Read my Word, Read my Word. As Sirach 15: 15 says, "[...] it is loyalty to do his will." So it is that we should be obedient to the will of God: read His Word, and have the greatest of teachers show us how to live the armour He has given us.

In the next blog I am excited to go into detail about something I have been alluding to for the past two weeks, a Saint Ignatius of Loyola reflective way of daily prayer that Father Carlos spoke of. Please come back next week as I go into depth about how we can develop a daily prayer-life that we love.

Discernment

Hello Zeteo world,

I sincerely hope you all are enjoying this August as it absolutely flies by. Seriously, where did the summer go? We are going camping for the next ten days with my family, and are pretty excited for the welcome chance to relax. Our summer has been packed so far, with not a lot of down time. Jerome is super excited to eat some dirt and try the sand down at the lake, seriously I cannot keep him from putting absolutely everything in his mouth.

God bless you all!

Olivia Fischer

Week One: Discernment 

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

St. Ignatius Loyola

Discernment. Catholics think about it in regards to vocation: does God want me to enter a religious vocation, am I called to the married life. What about discernment beyond vocation? What does God want us to do in the little areas of our lives, in our daily struggles?

Pope Francis is a Jesuit, the order of priests founded by St. Ignatius Loyola. He is the first Jesuit to be elected Pope, which came as a bit of a shock. A Jesuit who interviewed Pope Francis is credited with saying "We Jesuits are supposed to be at the service of the pope, not to be a pope." According to this article, Jesuits take an oath that requires them not to seek higher office in the Church. They are devoted to the poor and to the marginalized, which explains why Pope Francis has chosen to put away many of the more extravagant articles of the papacy. 

How is it, then, that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope?

At the age of thirty six, he was appointed the senior Jesuit of Argentina right around the time of the reign of terror of the military junta. He has said that his "authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led [him] to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative." This lead to a time of estrangement from the Jesuit community, at which time he became close with the archbishop of Buenos Aires and was ultimately appointed assistant bishop. 

From then on, he rose in the hierarchy, and now sits in the Chair of Peter.

Fr. Humberto Miguel Yanez, also an Argentinian Jesuit has said, "the fact that he had been somewhat rejected, internally, by the Jesuits, if not for that he probably would not have become a bishop." 

Pope Francis describes the period of estrangement as "a time of great interior crisis." However, a pillar of the Jesuit tradition is discernment, and Pope Francis sought God's will at this time in his life. Little could he have known the amazing and unprecedented plan God was working through the difficulty he was experiencing. When Pope Francis was asked recently the most challenging aspect of being a Jesuit, he said it was continuing to do God's will, which gives a sense of peace.

God works in ways that are mysterious to us. What could look like a complete crisis to our human understanding - an estrangement from our religious order, could be God's way of leading us to something we could never have dreamed of - becoming the first Jesuit Pope. Really, this is terrific news for us because the human heart has an infinite capacity to deceive and to be deceived. As Father Carlos articulated, we live each day in the battle arena of our own minds, we are our own worst enemies - the devil knows this, and unfortunately he is very cunning. Instead of revealing sins for what they are, he disguises them as something we mistake for being harmless or even good. We need to learn how to discern every aspect of our lives, not just the seemingly big or "important" decisions. 

This is why Father Carlos stresses the importance of daily prayer, of reading the Bible regularly. Without this daily tune-in to the voice of God, how are we supposed to know what is truth? In my next blog I will go into detail on the reflections Father Carlos offered on the armour of God, and on the daily examine that St. Ignatius Loyola told us to love, even if the rest of our prayer life has fallen apart. 

The word trust has been a huge part of my journey. At a Search, many years ago, it was put on my heart, and ever since, it has been a focus, a struggle, and a constant learning curve. Hand-in-hand with trust has come a reminder to discern, and to surrender. Even after all this time, after all these blaring reminders to trust, it is still something that I struggle with. Pope Francis talked about discernment as the road to lasting peace - something we are all searching for. I am so excited to delve more deeply into the amazing substance of Father Carlos' talk and to unpack the reality of how we can learn to discern the truth, and to turn to God on this daily personal battlefield.

Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for the next blog!




      Bell, Caleb K. "Why the First Jesuit Pope Is a Big Deal - Religion News Service." Religion News Service. Religion News Service, 14 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
      Gibson, David. "To Understand Pope Francis, Look to the Jesuits." To Understand Pope Francis, Look to the Jesuits. Religion News Service, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
      Stanford, Peter. "The Story of the Outsider Pope." National Post Peter Stanford The Story of the OutsiderPope Comments. National Post, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.