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.