Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (September 15, 2002)

Suggested Emphasis 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?"

Salesian Perspective

Ever been angry? Of course you have! Anger is a fact of life…sometimes volatile fact of life. Like any emotion, it cannot be denied or suppressed. However, it should not be nourished or fed.

Anger itself is not sinful. How we deal with anger - or fail to deal with anger - determines whether our anger results in virtue, or vice.

Few of us plan to grow angry. Anger is an intense response or reaction to an injury or injustice, either actual or perceived. As such, it often catches us off guard. Herein lies the difficulty. Precisely because of its spontaneity and intensity, anger can quickly get the upper hand…and get out of hand. Anger is, as it were, an uninvited guest that can quickly become the master of the house. "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, this same reason is feared rather than loved."

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 anger cool before making a decision or taking some action.

Repeatedly indulging in anger can have tragic results. When we brood over injuries, when we revisit old hurts, when we hold onto resentment, we cease being people who grow angry: we gradually become angry people. Being addicted to anger is like my drinking poison, but expecting everyone else to die. While my anger may indeed hurt others, it is in fact me that the poison will eventually kill.

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.

Rev. Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is Executive Director of the
De Sales Spirituality Center in Washington, DC