Charity versus Anger

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back he drew near the house. He could hear music and dancing. In calling one of the servants, he asked what it was all about. The servant told him, ‘Your brother has come and your father has killed the calf we have been fattening, because he has gotten him back safe and sound.’ He was angry then and refused to go in” (Luke 15:25-28).

Occasionally in Scripture, we are given examples of people who get angry. Angry is a difficult situation to be in. It can be a powerful tool of the devil. In angry situations, we can say things and do things that we didn't mean.

It's a very good thing to try and avoid getting angry and to control our anger, which is done through the virtue of meekness.

We control our anger by trying to be kind with people and patient, being charitable, realizing that perhaps I have a bit of a temper and I need to control that temper. Fast temper can be fast pride.

All of that is important because that helps us to live in peace with the people around us. We are called to live in peace with people and to foster peace in every situation—at home, at work, at school, in all sorts of places.

St. Paul says to the Romans, “As much as possible and to the utmost of your ability, be at peace with everyone” (Rom. 12:18).

Of course, the devil doesn't like that. He tries to stir up trouble. So he tries to make us to be at war with everybody—not to be at peace—through interior criticisms or impatience or lack of kindness or lack of temperance or a whole pile of things.

All peace comes from God. All lack of peace comes from the devil.

We are told in the Letter to the Hebrews, “I pray that the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood that sealed an eternal covenant, may prepare you to do his will in every kind of good action, affecting in us all whatever is acceptable to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever” (Heb. 13:20-21).

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” we’re told, “for they shall be recognized as children of God” (Matt 5:9).

So sometimes we have to try and impose peace on ourselves, in difficult or angry situations, or when we try to fly off the handle, or something goes wrong.

There was a moment when Our Lord was in the boat and there was a tremendous storm on the sea. The apostles were terrified. They were experienced fishermen, they'd seen many storms, but this was the worst.

We’re told in St. Mark that Our Lord “was in the stern of the boat, on the cushion, asleep.” Our Lord was totally peaceful.

“They turned to him and said, ‘Master, does it not concern you that we are perishing?’”

We are told Our Lord “stood up and spoke to the elements. He said, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And there came a great calm” (Mark 4:38-39).

Sometimes we have to know how to say those same words to our imagination, to our reactions, to our temper, to our feelings: Peace! Be still! Help me to learn how to control my anger, to keep it on a tight rein.

The older brother was angry and he would not go in. He refused to go in. He was stubborn. “His father came out and began to urge him to come in. But he retorted to his father, ‘All these years I have slaved for you, and never once disobeyed any order of yours. Yet you never offered me as much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends’” (Luke 15:28-29).

So his father comes out and tries to calm him down; pleads with him to come in. This is a moment to celebrate. “Your brother has come back. He was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32).

But the anger of this brother has made him cold-hearted. He doesn't want to make his peace with his brother. He is full of criticism, jealousy, and envy: ‘Here I am working hard in your house and you have never given me anything.’

And ultimately, what does he want? A goat. It's all very petty. It's all pitiful.

We learn from this how we have to always try to be at peace with our brothers and sisters. Occasionally we might have a bit of a disagreement, an argument. But God wants us to live in peace with our brothers and sisters. Our brothers and sisters are our greatest friends. That's what family is.

We can't let our anger overcome us and lead us to say all sorts of things or do all sorts of things. God wants that there would be a great unity in our families, and unity with the people that we live with, that we study with, that we work with.

There might be some person there that we find a bit more difficult to get on with. There might be a brother or a sister that's a bit difficult. But then it's up to us to reach out to that person, to see how to talk to them, what to say to them.

Avoid certain topics; not to step on their toes; to be clever so as to maintain that family peace and unity and serenity.

And it’s the same thing in the workplace.

We are born children of anger because of the wounds of original sin (Eph. 2:3). We have a great capacity to get angry at something or at somebody.

It's a condition in which the tongue can work faster than the mind. In angry situations, we can say all sorts of things that we might not say under other circumstances. Some of those things can be bad things, bad words, bad ideas. They can be words that hurt other people.

Often, the hurt that we cause other people when we’re angry can remain after we have stopped saying those words. We might say something to a brother or sister or a friend or an enemy that they remember forever. Forever and forever and forever.

God has told us that we would have to “give an account in heaven of every idle word” (Matt. 12:36). We need to be careful with our words.

Are your words always kind words? Patient words? Do your words create peace around you?

Or do your words make people jump? Do they find your words acidic, that reach into their hearts and burn them a little bit?

We all have to improve in the words that we say, and the way that we say it, the tone with which we say things—because we might not be angry, but we might give the impression that we are angry, or that there is something wrong; or that there is some great issue that is breaking our hearts and is being expressed in our words.

There is a story told of Noah who was trying to get two donkeys to go into the ark. He was leading the donkeys up the plank to go into the ark. But then the donkeys stopped.

Noah began to pull them and pull them, but they wouldn't budge. He began to go behind them and push them and push them, but still, the donkeys wouldn't budge.

There was no way to get the donkeys to get into the ark. Finally, exasperated, he said, ‘Get in, you devils!’ And the donkeys trotted into the ark.

Then later on, he found two devils in the ark. He said to the devils, ‘How did you get in here?’ They said, ‘You told us to get in here!’

So sometimes we can say things that we don't really mean or we don't really want. Then those things can happen.

We can come to regret what we said or what we did.

If we get angry and we get violent, we can do damage to things. Everybody has to learn how to control their anger.

See, sometimes in certain areas of life, people say, ‘You know, you should be very natural. Let it all flow. Just follow your feelings.’

That sounds very good, and it sounds very attractive. But in certain moments of our life, that's the last thing that we should do.

If a husband comes home and he's super angry about something, he wants to throw a brick through the window. His wife doesn't say to him, ‘Oh, follow your feelings. Be natural. Here's the brick. Now put it through the window.’

The wife says, ‘You put down that brick immediately and get a hold of yourself. Don't do any damage around here.’ She'll talk a lot of common sense.

Sometimes we are the ones that have to talk a lot of common sense to ourselves, because there's an evil person inside each one of us. The old person. The Gospel speaks about the old person.

St. Paul says, “We have to put off the old person and put on the new person. ... Be formed in the likeness of Christ” (Eph. 4:22-24).

Christ is the new person, and we've come to be more Christ-like in all situations.

That basically means learning how to put love into practice. Charity is love. It's controlling our anger. It's not saying or doing things that may hurt other people, or may damage other people. It's knowing how to be in control.

There is a good anger and there's a bad anger. A good anger is an anger to correct. If things are wrong, it's very good that we correct them—but in the right way.

If somebody is laying a table in the wrong way, or doing the laundry in the wrong way, or mopping the floor with the wrong end of the stick or something, we have to try and tell them, ‘No, you use the mop with the other end.’ Or, ‘You point the fork on the table or the knife in the other way, in the other direction.’

We have a nice sort of anger to correct them. If we see people mopping the floor with wood and we walk by and say, ‘Well, it doesn't really matter” that's not a very good reaction to have, because we want people to do a good job. We want them to learn more things.

There's a certain very slight anger to correct. This was the anger that Our Lord had in the temple. When He went in and found the money changers and the merchants there, He threw them all out of the temple (John 2:14-15).

The good anger is the anger of a mother with a two-year-old child who tells the child to ‘take that thing out of your mouth, because you might swallow it.’ She gets angry for a moment, and then she's calm.

Bad anger is an anger that smolders on like a fire—the end of a fire, especially if you're burning leaves or something. A lot of smoke keeps going there. It smolders on for a long time.

Something that somebody said or something that somebody did—we keep a grudge. Or we keep a scorecard of past wrongs.

‘That brother said that thing to me ten years ago.’ Or, ‘He scored a goal on me.’ Or, ‘He told a lie to my mother about me or something, or got me into trouble.’

We remember that. And maybe. we remember it with glee, because ‘someday I'm going to get even.’ That's a bad sort of anger.

We have to try and let those things pass. If ever there's something troubling you, something in your mind or in your heart, or somebody has wronged you in some way—come and place that before the tabernacle.

Leave that with Our Lord. Restore your peace.

Remember that for all of the ills other people may have done to us, we have hurt Our Lord a thousand times.

He's there on the Cross. We can offer to Him our broken hearts, our pains, our wounded hearts, and our memories, leaving all these things with Him.

Lord, I offer all this to you in atonement for my sins.

Every bad word that we may utter; every bad thing that we may say to other people; every time we hurt somebody else—that's a venial sin, and our venial sins hurt Our Lord on the Cross.

We have to try and be sorry for our venial sins, and try and avoid them; have a hatred for them.

We may find that there's a great anger that dominates the world, because people can get angry very easily about all sorts of things.

If we're in the state of grace, if God is in our soul—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—then we have a great chance of controlling our anger or being less angry. God is in control.

But if we're not in the state of grace, if the devil is in our mind and soul and heart, it's very easy for the devil to take control of our tongue and our ideas, our imagination. The devil is there. All bad things come from the devil.

Anger can lie in the heart of men. It can cause a lot of tribulation and chaos. It can mean that we are unable to forgive or to ask for forgiveness. The devil on the inside makes us cold-hearted.

But God invites us to place bridges between ourselves and other people, so that we keep these bridges open. We may need to walk on those bridges sometime.

If you ever see a bridge someplace, crossing a stream or a river, or even a highway or something, think about how that bridge is very silent.

That bridge helps an awful lot of traffic to get from one side of the river to the other. If you think of all the traffic on that bridge, sometimes you've got very heavy lorries. You see them going very slowly.

They're coming all the way from Mombasa, and maybe going to Uganda or the Congo. They're crossing this bridge.

But the bridge doesn't say, ‘Oh, hurry up and get across the bridge. You're too heavy. Get off my bridge. I can't take it anymore.’

Or maybe there's some young fellow with a super-duper new car who's flashing across the bridge. Just for fun, he brakes on the bridge just to see the skid marks. He leaves the skid marks on the bridge.

The bridge doesn't say, ‘Oh, you young jerk, how dare you mark my bridge?’

Or somebody else comes along and has to brake very suddenly because they're very angry with somebody else, and they screech their brakes and leave a skid mark on the bridge also.

The bridge doesn't suddenly yell up and say, ‘Look, take your anger somewhere else. Don't leave it on my bridge.’

The bridge is silent. The bridge takes everything. The bridge takes all the weight, takes all those slow lorries, takes the young jerks who want to do tricks, takes the anger of people that are taking it out on the matatu drivers, or vice versa. The bridge absorbs all those things.

Christ invites us to have a heart like His, which means that we're like a bridge between people, between ourselves and others: family members, workmates, fellow students, people we live with, people we work with.

That's one of the ways that we become a team player. We work with other people on the team, which means, ‘I'm happy to be doing the job that I'm doing and I'm happy to do as much as I can.’

Maybe another fellow worker of mine has finished her job earlier, or has more to do, or I'm finished earlier, so I go and help her to finish her job. We work together.

We don't calculate: ‘I'm doing so much and she's not doing so much.’ ‘Look at all that I've done and she hasn't done so much.’

We can get angry very quickly, and critical and impatient. We can be very unpleasant, even with ourselves and with other people; unpleasant to live with and to work with.

Whereas, if we have an open heart—and develop that open heart to be kind, to be patient, to be generous, to stamp out any anger before it may begin—that's a great way to live.

Hearts that are overcome with anger are difficult to penetrate. We can easily close the door to our hearts. We refuse to communicate.

‘You did this to me so now I'm going to do this to you.’ ‘You talk to me like that so now I'm not going to say a word to you for the next week.’ ‘I'm not going to even look at you.’

If there's somebody with whom you cannot communicate, then there's a grudge. You have to be able to communicate with everybody.

Maybe we don't have to sit down and talk to them for three hours, but we do have to say, ‘Good morning, how are you? Did you sleep okay? Are you feeling well?’ Or notice if they're not feeling well, or they're not so good today or something.

You have to be able to communicate and keep the channels of communication open always. There cannot be a brother or sister in our family with whom we don't speak. It's not a good sign.

We're all susceptible to the problems that may come with anger. Even if we try to lead holy lives, we still have the wounds of original sin, and any little bit of anger that gets in there can become full-blown. It can grow and grow.

Bitterness and resentment can get bigger and bigger in the course of our life. That's why we can't allow the devil any little chance.

We have to drown out those bad thoughts or bad feelings or bad relations. “Drown evil with an abundance of good” (Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, Point 864).

It's difficult for the spirit of God to live in a heart that's full of anger. In such a heart, only hatred and violence live.

We should have hatred only for the devil.

Try and use that word very sparingly. Don't say, ‘I hate this type of work.’ Or, ‘I hate this type of food.’ Or, ‘I hate this’ or ‘I hate that.’ We're called to love all things.

Maybe I don't like this particular thing or I prefer something else. Even use terms that are a bit more acceptable.

The word “hatred” is very strong. Keep “hatred” for sin. Keep “hatred” for the devil.

The devil can enter through anger. It can be a way to get into our souls. Therefore, it's very good to get out of angry situations.

How do we do that? Often, by writing things down.

If I'm very angry about something, write it down. Get all your feelings out on paper, and maybe, put it into a fire, or give it to your spiritual director, or give it to somebody who can burn it for you.

Often, that's a way of getting out pent-up feelings.

Or go to the confessional box or to the director of the center and say, ‘Look, I'm angry about this particular thing.’ Very often, that diffuses situations. We get it out. We talk about it. That's half the battle.

Then the devil sees that we have diffused it. We've let the air out of the tires a little bit. Then he's lost his weapon.

It's a great way to get out of angry situations. We might have to go to somebody someday and say, ‘Look, I'm boiling. I’m boiling mad. This person that said that thing, or this other person that did that other thing, or that matatu driver, or that person that was so impertinent or cheeky or unjust with me...

All those things happen to us from time to time. But it's great that we can get those things out. Recover our peace.

The Book of Proverbs says, “A fool gives vent to his anger, but a wise person keeps himself under control” (Prov. 29:11).

We find that the Holy Family, in all the difficult situations of their life, when their plans changed—go to Bethlehem, go to Egypt, now go back to where you came from—we don't find St. Joseph losing his temper.

‘Oh, again? Another change of plan? Well, you get it right the first time. You give me the full plan and let me know what I'm supposed to do.’

Joseph doesn't get angry with God. He just humbly accepts things: ‘Okay. You want me to go here? I go here.’ ‘Do you want me to go there? I go there.’

The virtue of meekness helps us to control that anger, to moderate it and all of the disorderly effects that may come from it.

One of the expressions of meekness is patience. Patience helps us to endure present evils without sadness or resentment.

If, someday, we have a bit more work—every day in our life, or every so often, there's a bit more work—a bit more work because maybe it's raining, and people walk into the school with muddy feet; or maybe somebody has made a mess someplace; or maybe there's just some big thing happening and there's extra work. ... Every professional person has extra work sometimes. Every mother of a family. Every father of a family.

But you can't get angry just because ‘I have to work a little more’ and an extra hour today or tomorrow or the next day.

Patience with situations. Patience with life. Patience with people. Patience with ourselves.

Maybe we're the ones that made the mess. Maybe it's all our fault. That makes us even more angry. Well, patience. Control. To offer it up. To carry on. To endure the present evils.

And, without sadness. Someday, we'll have an extra bit of work but we don't have to go around with a big long face. ‘No, I have to work a bit more. Poor me.’ Self-pity. Martyr complex. ‘How hard I work, how little I complain.’ ‘What a saint I am!’

We try and accept the extra things that come our way with peace, serenity, joy.

It's a wonderful thing if, on some occasion, there's a bit of extra work and we know how to be cheerful. We help the other people who also want to get angry or feel bad or feel tired or all sorts of things.

Or, if we’re about to go to bed one day and it's been a long day, there's been a lot of work, and suddenly there's an emergency or suddenly something else has to be done. Or a pipe starts to leak and there's a flood. Or there's some crisis that has to be managed.

Okay, we go and we handle it with peace and with serenity. We learn how to endure those little contradictions without that martyr complex. We learn how to handle difficulties.

There's a great talent in life to learn how to handle difficult situations with peace, without giving in to sadness or reacting with a growing sense of rage.

‘How dare that person call me at this hour of the night? Do you know what time it is?’

All those sorts of interruptions that may come—we learn how to handle difficult situations because maybe, that person's in trouble. Maybe that person needs a listening ear. Maybe that person needs our open heart, not our harsh words.

They need our patience, our kindness, our availability, our generosity to be there for them in that difficult moment.

We can ask God to give us this grace a little more, and the virtue of meekness to control the anger, to be more charitable in those difficult situations, to think of other people, to forget about ourselves.

Very often, our anger comes from thinking about ourselves. It's an expression of selfishness.

If you look at some of the writings of St. Josemaría, like The Way, The Forge, and Furrow, you'll find very frequently the words appear there, “Forget yourself” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Points 592, 599, 608; The Forge, Points 97, 861; Furrow, Point 793).

Part of our battle to be more Christ-like is to conquer our selfishness. We're all super-selfish.

I love myself too much. It’s the greatest problem in our spiritual life. I love my comfort. I love my sleep. I love my pleasures. I love this. I love that.

God wants us to forget about all those things and to give ourselves to other people.

We solve all our problems by thinking about the others. How can I work better so as to help the others? How can I be a more cheerful team player to help the others?

The more you forget about yourself, the happier you become.

That means also forgetting about our little angers, or the things that make us angry, or the things that upset us, or the things that go wrong, so that we learn how to take all those things in stride.

We see Our Lady and St. Joseph going to Bethlehem, going to Egypt, with great peace, a great serenity. We're not told in Scripture that Herod was out to get them, ‘and Joseph and Mary were boilingly furious.’ Or, they went to Egypt grinding their teeth: ‘If it wasn't for that Herod, we could stay here in the place that we've made comfortable. Here we are changing our life again.’

They didn't go to Egypt with all those sentiments in their heart.

Likewise, we can't walk around all day grinding our teeth, cursing, and saying bad words or that life has treated me so badly.

We have to learn how to handle things with that great peace we see in the Holy Family.

We could ask Our Lady, that we might not be like that older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He was older; he should have known better.

We are older. We need to know better, be more mature, more adult. All of that involves controlling that anger.

We can ask Our Lady that she might help us to grow in the virtues that we need in order to be more charitable.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW