*****
“Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. Should a person nourish anger against others and expect healing from the Lord?”
Have you ever been upset? Have you ever been livid? Have you ever been angry? Of course, you have! Anger (with its many faces) is a fact of life……sometimes, in fact, a very volatile fact of life. Like any emotion, it cannot be denied or suppressed.
As emotions go, anger itself is not sinful any more than joy, fear or happiness would be considered sinful. However, how we deal with anger - or fail to deal with anger - determines whether our anger results in virtue, or vice - whether it ultimately results in something constructive or something destructive.
Few of us plan to grow angry. Anger is an intense response or reaction to an injury or injustice, whether actual or perceived. As such, it often catches us off guard. Herein lies the difficulty with this “pesky” emotion. Precisely because of its spontaneity and intensity, anger can quickly get the upper hand…and even more quickly…get out of hand. Anger can become, as it were, an uninvited guest that quickly becomes the master of the house. Francis de Sales observed: “Once admitted it is with difficulty driven out again. It enters as a little twig, and in less than no time it grows big and becomes a beam.” Francis de Sales counsels us: “It is better to attempt to find a way to live without anger, rather than pretend to make a moderate or discreet use of it. As long as reason rules and peaceably exercises chastisements or corrections, people can approve and receive them. However, when accompanied by anger or rage, these same chastisements or corrections are feared rather than loved.”
For her part, Jane de Chantal suggests:
“Try to calm your passions and live according to sound reason and the holy will of God.” It is better to let our anger cool before making an important decision or embarking upon some action.”
Most importantly, anger should not be nourished or fed. Repeatedly indulging in anger can have tragic results for us. When we brood over injuries, when we revisit old hurts and when we hold onto resentments, we cease being people who get angry and we gradually become angry people. Being addicted to anger is like our drinking poison, but expecting everyone else to die. While our anger may indeed hurt others on the outside, the poison that it produces eventually kills us from the inside.
Heed these words from the Book of Sirach: "Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. Should a person nourish anger against others and expect healing from the Lord? As a stone falls back upon the one who throws it up, so a blow struck in anger injures more than one. Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then, when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven." (Sir 27: 25; 28: 2-3)
Avoid wallowing in or nourishing anger. Remember, anger is an emotion - it is not meant to become a way of life.
*****
“I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered…that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.”
True devotion not only does no violence to ordinary, everyday life – in fact, it also enhances it. In particular, devotion produces an abundance of tranquility. Synonyms associated with tranquility include:
- peace
- peacefulness
- restfulness
- repose
- calm
- calmness
- quiet
- quietness
- stillness
- composure
- serenity
- equanimity
- unflappability St. Jane de Chantal observed:
“Preserve peace of heart and tranquility. Do not disturb yourselves about anything. Never trouble yourselves whatever may happen to you or around you. Tranquility precludes haste and levity. It makes us do everything in the spirit of repose, without hurry. I say not slowly or carelessly, but quietly, as before God.”
Note the distinction – tranquility is not about doing nothing. Tranquility is about doing something – anything – in a careful, composed, calm and unflappable manner.
Today, how might we go about serving God and neighbor in tranquility?
*****
“If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God? He must also have a good reputation among outsiders…”
In his commentary on the selection from the First Letter of Timothy, William Barclay makes the following observation:
“As the early Church saw it, the responsibility of an office-bearer did not begin and end in the Church. Such a person had two other spheres of responsibility, and failure in either of these would also bound to lead to failure in the Church.”
“One’s first sphere of duty was to one’s own home. If a person did not know how to rule one’s own household, how could such a person engage upon the task of the work of the Church? A person who had not succeeded in making a Christian home could hardly be expected to succeed in making a Christian congregation. A person who had not instructed one’s own family could hardly be the right person to instruct the family of the Church.”
“The second sphere of responsibility was to the world. Such a person must be ‘well thought of by outsiders’. Such a person must be one who has gained the respect of other people in the day-to-day business of life…The Christian must first of all be a good person.”
All of us are called to do our part in caring for the “Church of God” in our own unique ways. However, there is no better way of creating a loving Church than doing our best to foster loving relationships with family, friends, relatives and neighbors – and, perhaps even most importantly, with ourselves!
Louis Brisson, OSFS echoed these thoughts when wrote:
“We are called to realize this intimate union with God in ourselves and in all those confided to our care. You see, my friends, to what we are obliged—to reestablish here below the earthly paradise. This is certainly no small task! Where shall we begin this great undertaking? With ourselves, of course.”
What’s the moral to the story? Charity – as in the case of so many things – begins at home.
*****
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?”
You’re dammed if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
That’s essentially what Jesus is saying in today’s selection from the Gospel of Luke. John the Baptist was criticized for eschewing food and drink, whereas Jesus was criticized for enjoying food and drink. Try as you might to do the right thing – try as you might to be true to yourself - some days you just can’t win!
St. Francis de Sales was certainly no stranger to the dynamic of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, especially when it comes to trying to live a life of devotion. Citing this very selection from today’s Gospel, he observed:
“We can never please the world unless we lose ourselves together with it. It is so demanding that it can’t be satisfied. ‘John came neither eating nor drinking,’ says the Savior, and you say, ‘He has a devil.’ ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking’ and you say that he is ‘a Samaritan’ If we are ready to laugh, play cards or dance with the world in order to please it, it will be scandalized at us, and if we don’t, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or melancholy. If we dress well, it will attribute it to some plan we have, and if neglect our attire, it will accuse us of being cheap and stingy. Good humor will be called frivolity and mortification sullenness. Thus the world looks at us with an evil eye and we can never please it. It exaggerates our imperfections and claims they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal sins and changes our sins of weakness into sins of malice.”
“The world always thinks evil and when it can’t condemn our acts it will condemn our intentions. Whether the sheep have horns or not and whether they are white or black, the wolf won’t hesitate to eat them if he can. Whatever we do, the world will wage war on us. If we stay a long time in the confessional, it will wonder how we can so much to say; if we stay only a short time, it will say we haven’t told everything…The world holds us to be fools; let us hold it to be mad.” (IDL, Part IV, Chapter 2, pp. 236-237)
These brave missionaries whose lives and sacrifices we remember today made a choice. If they were going to be damned for something, they chose to be damned – in this case, be martyred – for doing the right thing. Of course, as Christians, we believe that being damned in the eyes of others resulted in their being glorified in the eyes of God.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t? Well, then, why not be damned for doing what is virtuous, right and good!
How might we follow the example of these brave missionary-martyrs in our willingness to stand up for what we believe in the face of criticism – or even hostility – from others?
Today!
*****
“Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received…”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“During the Roman Empire, tax collecting was one of the most lucrative jobs a person could have. With the emperor’s tacit approval, collectors were free to wring all they could from their district’s taxpayers and then keep a portion of the proceeds for themselves. Caesar didn’t mind the profiteering as long as the total assessed tax was delivered to his treasury. But Jewish taxpayers forced to pay the exorbitant sums weren’t quite so forgiving, especially when the tax collector was a fellow Jew, like Matthew. Jewish tax collectors were regarded as loathsome collaborators and extortionists who exploited their own people. It’s little wonder, then, that in the Gospels tax collectors are placed on par with harlots, thieves, and other shameless public sinners.”
“Matthew collected taxes in Capernaum, a town in the northern province of Galilee and the site of a Roman garrison. Christ was a frequent visitor there, performing such miracles as healing the centurion’s servant, curing Peter’s ailing mother-in-law, and raising Jairus’ daughter form the dead. One day, while passing the customs house where Matthew was busy squeezing extra shekels from his neighbors, Christ paused to say, ‘Follow me.’ That was all it took to touch Matthew’s heart. He walked out of the customs house forever, giving up his life as a cheat to become an apostle, the author of a Gospel and eventually a martyr.” (Page 12)
Just when Matthew thought he had it made – just when he thought he was living la vita loca – Christ changed his life by calling him to live in a manner worthy of what God had in mind for him. Matthew – who clearly recognized an opportunity when he saw one – dropped everything he had valued up until that very moment to follow Jesus. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s amazing to consider how a handful of words can change the trajectory of one’s life. A few words from Jesus transformed Matthew from being a human being who was all about taking from others into a man who was all about giving to others - even to the point of giving his very life.
Today, how might God’s words invite us to change and to transform our lives?
*****
“Pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“All that we must try for is to make ourselves good men and women, devout men and women, pious men and women. We must try hard to achieve this end. If it should please God to elevate us to angelical perfections, then we shall be good angels. In the meantime, however, let us try sincerely, humbly and devoutly to acquire those little virtues who conquest our Savior has set forth as the object of all our care and labor. These include patience, meekness, self-discipline, humility, obedience, poverty, chastity, tenderness toward our neighbors, bearing with others’ imperfections, diligence and holy fervor.” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 2, p. 127)
How do we pursue such simple – yet sublime – virtues in our attempts to “Live + Jesus”? By making the best use of them in each and every present moment as good men and good women.
*****
“A sower went out to sow…”
How many good beginnings in our lives have been trampled upon and/or consumed by something else? How many of us have hardened our hearts to do good things only to see them perish for lack of care? How many good ideas or intentions have failed to bear fruit because they were chocked off by anxieties and/or other concerns? And still, for all our struggles and setbacks, many of the seeds of God’s goodness in us have taken root and produced a great harvest. Just for today, let’s hear the parable in a different way. Think of all the big plans you have made for others. Think of all the good intentions that you’ve suggested to others. Think of all expectations that you’ve cradled in your heart for others. In other words, think of all the good seeds that you’ve planted in the lives of other people. It’s very tempting – and even more discouraging – to focus on how many of those seeds never amounted to much – if anything at all. However, from a Salesian perspective, it is far better – and healthier, to boot – to focus on how the seeds that you may have possibly planted in others have taken root, have grown, and even flourished, sometimes beyond even your wildest dreams. Can you think of any examples of this growth in your own life? Can you think of examples in the lives of others, especially in those people whom you know and love? If not, just this day how might God ask you to sow good seeds in the heart or mind of another person? How might that same God also be asking you to do your part to help make those good seeds grow?
