Anger: and what to do with it

     To say it’s been a challenging week is most definitely the understatement of the year.  The events of this past week have brought about confusion, frustration, even anger in so many within our community.  I’ve even heard from several outside the Catholic community expressing considerable dismay.  Such is life from time to time.  Now: how do we deal with times such as these?

     Because we are bound to have many such moments in the weeks to come, let us reflect on St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (4:26-27): “If you are angry, let it be without sin.  The sun must not go down on your wrath; do not give the devil a chance to work on you.”

     We must first recognize that the initial flush of anger is an emotional response that works out of the unconscious.  We don’t have any moral responsibility for that emotion; it just is.  But, what do we do in the wake of that emotional response?  For that we bear great responsibility, and so we have to get it right!

     What we don’t want to do is wallow in or nurse that anger.  This is precisely what St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Ephesians.  When we wallow in or nurse anger (this is often called entertaining an occasion for sin) we focus on our justification for anger and build it up into a great, ego-centered temple to our own assumed greatness, rightness, or wisdom.  There is no question that this is from the evil-one and only leads to him.

     So, what IS the proper response?  What emotion can I have, should I have?  What will lead me to the place I want to be – to Jesus and the eternal life that is found in Him?  Now we’re making headway.  What is the response that our Lord, Himself typically has for those who reject Him or can’t leave behind the very thing that keeps us from following Him fully.

     We see time after time that our Lord’s emotional response is “sadness”.  He is sad for the person who won’t come to Him.  He is sad that they won’t leave even the thing that they themselves recognize as keeping them from Him.  He doesn’t condemn; He doesn’t endlessly rant and rave; He doesn’t slam the door.  What He does is LOVE them, love US.

     This doesn’t come automatically.  This response comes with much prayer and practice.  It also comes with recognizing that more often than not the person who has made us angry is, on some level, doing what they honestly think is best.  We might not agree with the result, but it isn’t coming from a place of evil.  Of course, there are times when a decision IS coming from a place of selfishness, pride, whatever.  Is it ok to be angry then?  NO!  It is proper to recognize their weakness even as we recognize and admit our own weakness and do penance for it.  Indeed, we might seriously consider doing penance for the weakness of the other.

     There’s a lot to reflect on, to consider here.  Do reflect.  Do bring this to prayer.  And begin to see the difference this makes in your life – and your life of faith – as you walk in Christ’s way of love.

     “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Trial, or distress, or persecutions, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?  Yet in all this we are more than conquerors because of Him Who has loved us.”  (Romans 8:35, 37)