Meekness

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 his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in” (Luke 15:25-28).

We are told in the Psalms that “the Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love” (Ps. 145:8).

We are born children of anger.

Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind. There's a story told of Noah when he was trying to get two donkeys into the ark. They were halfway up the plank and they stopped. And he was pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling, and there was no way for them to move.

And finally, exasperated, Noah shouted at them and said, “Get in, you devil.” And so they trotted into the ark. But sometime later, Noah discovered there were two devils in the ark and asked them, “How did you get in here?” They said, “You told us to get in here.”

And so, sometimes in situations of anger, we say things we don't really mean.

This meditation is about the virtue of meekness. Meekness is the virtue whereby we control our anger.

There was a small ship that was traveling through the night. And there was another ship also, a bigger ship, that saw the small ship in its pathway. It sent a message to the small ship saying, “We are headed in your direction. Please move out of the way.”

And the small ship replied to the big ship, “You move.”

But the captain of the bigger ship was an admiral in the Navy. And he wasn't used to being spoken to by some small ship in this manner. He sent back a message saying, “I am an admiral in the Navy. Now please move out of the way.”

The reply came back saying, “I am a private in the Coast Guard. You move.”

At this, the admiral was furious. He sent back a third message saying, “I am a battleship.”

The reply came back saying, “I am a lighthouse.” And so, the admiral had to climb down off his high horse.

There is a great anger that dominates the world. It lies in the hearts of men. It can cause a lot of tribulation and chaos. It causes people to hurt each other. We become unable to forgive or to ask forgiveness.

Hearts overcome by anger are difficult to penetrate. We are all susceptible to it. The fact that we may try to live lives close to God does not make us immune to it, and bitterness and resentment can become full-blown.

It's difficult for the spirit of God to live in a heart full of anger. In such a heart, the spirit of hatred and violence lives. It can be a powerful tool of the devil. The devil enters through anger.

It's very interesting to try and get out of angry situations. The Book of Proverbs says, “A fool gives full vent to his anger. But a wise man keeps himself under control” (Prov. 29:11).

There's also anger in a good sense. It's a natural human reaction to obstacles. There is good anger, which is the anger of a mother with her two-year-old child. She gets angry, she corrects, and it's over.

There's another type of anger: bad anger that lingers on, smolders, and lies deep in the heart.

The anger of Christ in the temple, at the money changers (Matt. 21:12-13)—that was a good type of anger. Anger to correct. There are situations where we should get angry, should change things, should correct. A lack to do so would be a lack of virtue.

Anger is morally good or righteous if it's directed against wrongdoing, and it's expressed under the control of reason and will. Gregory the Great says, “Reason opposes the evil more effectively when anger ministers at her side.”

Anger is evil and unrighteous if it's directed against something good; or if it's allowed to get out of control or in control of us. A fast temper is a fast pride.

The deadly vice of anger is an immoderate desire for revenge. Anger is sinful when it leads to vengeful actions that are disproportionate to the injury suffered.

An angry person can seek by any means to injure others, because they consider the good of others a threat to themselves.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to get out of situations of anger, or to learn to control our anger.

The virtue of meekness, then, moderates anger and all its disorderly effects. It does this by controlling anger and not permitting one's anger to be aroused over trivial things. It prevents a person from taking too much revenge on those who have injured him. It restrains inordinate movements of resentment at another's character or behavior.

It's a very important virtue. It has nothing to do with weakness or timidity.

Patience is another form of meekness. It enables us to endure present evils without sadness or resentment.

“Charity endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). It's a strong virtue because it inclines us to suffer and endure present evils without self-pity, without becoming a martyr. It helps us to handle difficulties without giving in to sadness or reacting with a growing sense of rage.

Our Lord said, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matt. 11:29). One of the concrete virtues that Our Lord invites us to imitate in Him is meekness.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5).

“I have pity on them...because they are like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

This virtue helps us to have souls that are open wide to other souls because we have a heart that is gentle and lowly like Christ's.

The fruitfulness of our apostolate is often closely tied up with the virtue of meekness. The way to cure our bad temper, impatience, or failure to be warm and understanding, is to imitate Jesus in His meekness.

The tranquility of heart depends on ourselves. The ability to avoid anger with all its effects has to come from within. We can't be dependent on the nature of other people. The power to overcome the evil in our character cannot depend on some perfection outside of us, but on our own virtue.

And so, we need to ask for the grace to forgive always, promptly and wholeheartedly—to have a spirit of unlimited forgiveness.

God pardons those who pardon others. The mercy we show to others is the same mercy that will be shown to us.

The Book of Sirach says, “He who exacts vengeance will experience the vengeance of the Lord, who keeps strict account of sin. Forgive your neighbor the hurt he does you, and when you pray your sins will be forgiven. If a man nurses anger against another, can he then demand compassion from the Lord?” (Sir. 28:1-3).

Our Lord has perfected this command by extending it to every person and to every offense. Through His death on the Cross, Christ has made all men brothers in a new creation.

St. Peter wondered aloud if this teaching was going too far, when he asked Jesus, “How many times must we forgive another?” Our Lord said, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:21-22).

Which means, always. It's not a matter of a mathematical calculation.

Christ wants us to learn how to overcome evil through the power of His infinite love. He taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matt. 6:12).

And so, living the Spirit is the only way that we'll attract the infinite mercy of God.

To forgive from one's heart will often require true faith. We need to ask for an increase in that faith.

Due to the intensity of their faith, holy souls who have lived their lives in imitation of Christ often don't see the need even to forgive. They realize that the only real evil is sin. Injuries and calumnies are simply not so very important.

We can examine our conscience and see if there’s anything deep down that we're holding, some resentment, either real or imaginary. Has our pardon been speedy, sincere, wholehearted, unreserved?

If somebody annoys us 50,000 times, that's how often we have to forgive them. Our patience has to get ahead of our bad feelings, wearing them out before they provoke more harm.

Isaiah and the Psalmist invite us to contemplate the greatness of God, as opposed to the weakness of our own, which we know through the experience of our repeated falls into sin.

They tell us that “the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps. 103:8) and that “those who hope in him shall receive their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:31).

Our Lord brought a yoke and a burden to mankind. But this yoke is easy to bear because it liberates us, and the burden does not weigh us down because He Himself carries the heaviest part.

Our Lord never oppresses us with His instructions and demands. On the contrary, they make us freer and simplify our life.

“Come to me, all who labor under heavy burden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

Our Lord proposes Himself as a model of meekness and humility. These are virtues and dispositions of the heart which always go together.

When He talks to the people who follow Him, they're “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). But He wins their trust through the meekness of His heart, always so welcoming and understanding.

If we look closely at Him, we see how patient He is with the defects of His disciples: “Too dull a wit, too slow of heart” (Luke 24:25).

How unweariedly He repeats the same teaching over and over again, explaining it in detail, so that His slow-minded and easily distracted friends can master His saving doctrine. He never loses patience with their obtuseness and failure to grasp His meaning. Even at the Last Supper, they still did not understand what He was talking about.

Our Lord, who is Our Master and Lord, and at the same time is “meek and humble of heart”, acted patiently in attracting and inviting His disciples.

So, the way to cure our bad temper, our impatience, is to imitate Our Lord in His meekness. This calm and welcoming spirit will be born and developed in us in exact proportion to our efforts to remember the constant presence of God and to think more about Our Lord's life.

We are told in The Way, “How I wish your bearing and conversation were such that, on hearing and seeing you, people would say: this man reads the life of Jesus Christ” (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 2).

Contemplating Jesus will help us not to be arrogant, not to lose our tempers when something goes wrong.

We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that this ‘bad temper’ of ours, which bursts out in very specific circumstances and times, depends on the character of the people around us. The peace of our spirit doesn't depend on the good nature and kindness of other people. Our neighbor's good nature and kindness are in no way subject to our control or opinion.

The tranquility of our heart depends on ourselves. We need to ask for this grace of meekness in greater quantities, and to see its value, to work at it.

Meekness is particularly necessary in circumstances where living with other people is difficult. We need a little more of this virtue.

Meekness is rooted in great spiritual strength. It doesn't go with being feeble or characterless.

The practice of this virtue calls for continuous acts of strength. According to the Gospel, the poor are those who are truly rich, and the meek are those who are truly strong.

“Blessed are the meek” (Matt. 5:5) because they, in this world's warfare, are protected against the devil and against earthly persecutors. They're like glassware, so well packed into straw and hay, or hay that is not broken when it's struck.

Meekness is like a strong shield that blunts and shatters the sharp arrows of anger. The meek are like people dressed in garments of thick quilted cotton, which protect them without harming anyone else.

Anger, in all its many forms, is the material on which this virtue has to work. Meekness controls it and directs it so that it's aroused only when necessary and to the extent to which it is necessary.

When we compare our own life to the majesty of God, who made Himself a baby in Bethlehem, we see our own life in its real proportions, and what could have seemed an enormous trial shrinks to its true insignificant size. Maybe one year from now we will not even remember that event.

When we contemplate the birth of Jesus, we find that our prayer can come alive, our love becomes wider and deeper, and our peace more unshakable. Close to Him, we learn to consider the various happenings of our everyday life in His presence, to give them their true value.

To be silent sometimes, when we would have liked to speak, to smile, to be nice to everybody, to wait for the right moment in which to correct a fault. At the same time, we're ready to leap to the defense of truth in the interests of God and other people with as much force as may be necessary.

There's no opposition between meekness, closely connected as it is with humility, and a righteous anger against injustice. Meekness is not a shelter for cowardice. An anger which protects the rights of other people is righteous and holy.

We see the righteous anger of Our Lord against the Pharisees and the traitors in the temple. He found the temple turned into a den of robbers—a place where there was no reverence, given over to business which had nothing to do with the true worship of God.

He was terribly angry and showed it by word and deed (Matt. 21:12-13). The evangelists show us few scenes as forceful as this one.

And yet, together with this righteous anger, Our Lord shows us His great passion for the needy. “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (Matt. 21:14).

Meekness sets its face against the pointless displays of violence, which at bottom are just signs of weakness, such as impatience, irritation, bad temper and hatred. It's opposed to all useless waste of energy and unnecessary anger, which so often originates in little things that we might have passed over in silence or with a smile.

These little explosions will never have any useful results. Little explosions of bad temper between husband and wife can gradually corrode true love. It stems from a lack of this virtue.

So does irritability, with its serious consequences for the upbringing of children.

The same lack of meekness can destroy our peace in prayer, because instead of talking to God, we brood over our injuries.

It is the absence of meekness which leads to that bad temper in conversation, which makes even those solid arguments powerless to convince.

Mastery of self, which is part of true meekness, is the weapon of those who are really strong. It prevents us from answering back too quickly and from speaking wounding words, which afterwards we may wish we had never said. Meekness knows how to wait for the right moment to express its judgments in a way that carries conviction.

Habitual lack of meekness is the result of pride. We are told, “Your ill temper, your roughness, your unfriendliness, your rigidity (not very Christian!) are the reasons why you find yourself alone, in the loneliness of someone who is selfish, embittered, eternally discontented or resentful, and they are also the reason why you are surrounded not by love but by indifference, coldness, resentment and lack of trust.

“With your good humor, your understanding and your friendliness, with the meekness of Christ as part and parcel of your life, not only should you be happy, but you should bring happiness to everyone around you, to the people you meet on the road of your life” (Salvador Canals, Jesus as Friend).

And so “the meek will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). First, they'll possess themselves, because they're not slaves to their impatience and bad temper.

They'll possess God, because their souls are always inclined to prayer, in the continual consciousness of the presence of God.

And they will possess those around them, because they have the kind of hearts which win friendship and affection, indispensable for everyday social life and apostolate.

As we pass through the world, we have to spread around us the “fragrance of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15) with our habitual smile, good humor, happiness, love, and understanding.

We could examine ourselves and our readiness to make the little sacrifices necessary to make life pleasant for other people.

Are we able to give way to other people's opinions, instead of claiming to be always right about everything? Do we know how to control our temper and disregard the frictions which are inevitable in daily life?

We'll achieve all this if we talk more to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if we make a real effort every day to be more understanding with the people around us; if we never stop trying to smooth out the rough edges of our characters; if we know how to go to the tabernacle to talk over with Our Lord the subjects which are uppermost in our thoughts.

Frequently we can be offended by the most trivial things—a lack of gratitude perhaps, a sharp word in a moment, a weakness, or just a piece of bad luck.

But at the time as we can become upset from serious causes such as calumnies and twisted interpretations of what we've done with an upright conscience, whatever be the provocation, if we are to forgive right away, and to the full, we need to have our hearts directed to God.

This grandeur of soul will lead us to pray for people who do us harm. “Forgive them Lord, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Our practice of Christian pardon can bring many souls to the faith. This is how Christ reacted.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, when he prepared for martyrdom, encouraged the early Church at Ephesus to “pray unceasingly also for the rest of men, for they offer ground for hoping that they may be converted and win their way to God.

“We can try to meet angry outbursts with our own gentleness; boastfulness with our humility; revilings with our prayers; error with our constancy in the faith; harshness with our meekness; not trying to match the example of others; proving ourselves to be brothers and sisters through courtesy.

“We try to strive to follow Our Lord's example and see who can suffer greater wrong, more deprivation or more contempt, so no weed of the devil will be found in us, but we persevere in perfect chastity and sobriety through Jesus Christ, in body and soul.” St. Ignatius talks about this in his Epistle to the Ephesians.

When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, they found no room at the inn (Luke 2:7). Tired after their long journey, obeying the will of God, this bump in the road could have given rise to profound anger. But yet we see an enormous peace, a serenity. They look for solutions. They see the will of God in this contradiction.

We can ask Our Lady, that we might have the grace to react like she did, and St. Joseph, in all similar challenging situations.

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.

MVF