Therefore, put on the armor of God,
that you may be able to resist on the evil day
and, having done everything, to hold your ground.
So stand fast with your loins girded in truth,
clothed with righteousness as a breastplate,
and your feet shod in readiness for the Gospel of peace.
In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield,
to quench all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God.
(Eph 6:11-17)
In seminary we were blessed with the foremost homiletician (professor of homiletics—the study of preaching) in the country, David Buttrick (1927-2017). Saint Meinrad Seminary had received a gift of 1 million dollars from a Catholic gentleman who was tired of hearing bad homilies at Mass. With those funds Saint Meinrad brought David Buttrick to the cornfields of southern Indiana. It was David who pointed out to us that among all the instruments in the “armor of God” there was only one offensive weapon, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” The photo today is of Rev. David Buttrick, Professor of Homiletics, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Saint Meinrad School of Theology, Divinity School of Vanderbilt University.
