5th Sunday after Pentecost, June 23, 2013

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 23, 2013

Epistle: 1 Peter 3: 8-15        Gospel: Matthew 5: 20-24

Anger is like fire and smoke. If we don’t check our anger it will destroy everything, like a forest fire. The blood that rushes to our heads when we are angry is like thick smoke, it destroys our reason and keeps us from seeing what is happening. Anger even disfigures our faces so we are hardly recognizable. Imagine how is disfigures our souls.

Anger leads us to resentments, blasphemy, criminal acts, slander and other sins because it darkens our understanding. It can cause us to hate. St. Augustine tells us that hatred is nothing other than anger that we hold onto.

What if our brother does something against us? Christ cautions us not to be angry with him. We can be angry against his sin, but that is not really anger. It is zeal, an enthusiasm that our brother not sin against his neighbor, instead that he love his neighbor and act charitably toward him.

          When we let anger take over, it is accompanied with a desire for revenge. That’s another sin that anger leads to. You might say you have been injured by someone and have a right to your revenge, and if this is a sin, God will have pity on you because you were unjustly hurt. But who is telling you that you have a right to revenge? It is you, you who are angry, and because you are angry you are unable to think straight. God tells us in Deuteronomy, “Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time.” (Deuteronomy 32: 35)  While Ecclesiastes 28 tells us that if we do seek to revenge ourselves, we will find vengeance from God. If we refuse to obey God’s command to forgive our neighbor, how can we expect to receive forgiveness from God for our own sins?

In Jeremias 1, God asks the prophet, “What do you see, Jeremias?” He answers, “I see a rod waiting to inflict punishment.” God asks him again, “What seest thou?” and he replies, “I see a boiling cauldron.” That cauldron is us when we are boiling mad. When we are in that state we are threatened with a rod, that is, with the vengeance of God.

How do we keep our anger in check? By meekness. This is the virtue of our Lord,  Jesus Christ, the virtue of the Lamb of God, Who bore all the pain and sorrows of His passion and crucifixion without anger or complaint. We won’t be completely free of anger in our lives, but we tame it, we control it, through meekness. “Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart,” our Lord tells us at Matthew 11: 29.  St. Paul tells us specifically to “Put on the bowels of mercy, humility, modesty, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another . . .” (Colossians 3) If we want others to put up with our defects and forgive our faults, we have to do the same for them.

St. John Chrysostom tells us there is nothing better to draw people to God than if they see a Christian meek and happy when they have been injured or insulted. “Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you,” Christ tells us in Matthew 5: 11. But you might say, “I cannot bear this injustice.” Christ answers us, “Love your enemies, Do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you.”  (Matthew 5: 44)  So, do not respond with an insult the next time you are insulted or slandered. If you do, your enemy gains a victory over you. Instead, pray for that person, do something good toward them. Visit them if they are in the hospital, send them a birthday card. Help them in any way you can. Is this hard to do? Yes, it is, because we all know some people who deserve a good kick in their backside because of the nasty things they do. But following Christ is not for the weak, it’s for the strong, for such is the power of God’s grace, that by being meek and humble of heart like Jesus, each and every one of us can overcome the world.  +++

(Thanks to St. Alphonsus de Ligouri.)

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass