For much of my marriage, I struggled (gave into) my swiftness to anger. It was destroying my marriage. Then, one evening, the Lord graced me with calming words in a moment when I was ready to descend into a fiery rage against my husband, who'd just said something he knew was cutting to me (I, too, had been doing the same to him...we were in a heated argument) and then fled upstairs to our room. I'd been cooking dinner and turned off the burner, ready to fly upstairs after him, spitting even worse rage.
And if I were to name just one moment in my life when I knew without a doubt the Lord had spoken to me, this was it. As I shoved the frying pan aside, I happened to glance up at the crucifix on my kitchen wall and at the exact same moment "heard" within me: "I died for you. Will you die fo Me?" With those words, the anger seemed to slip out of me. The shock of those words, of being confronted with their truth, calmed me like the sea Jesus rebuked. How could I say no to such a question? To do so was unthinkable.
Only the grace of God caused me to do what was next. I walked upstairs and met my husband in the hall. He was surely ready to defend himself against the tirade he was expecting. Instead, I kissed his cheek and said calmly, "I know you didn't mean what you said, and I forgive you for it. I'm sorry for what I said, too. Wanna come down for dinner?" And with that, he apologized as well and the fight was over.
I can't say I never gave into anger again. But it was a start. That question of Jesus' has stayed with me and through it (and through many more moments of grace), He has saved me and my marriage.
I don't know what I'm sharing, except that I don't think it was for me alone that He did that, and when I read this, it all came flooding back and felt like it needed to be shared. God bless you, Father, for your spiritual fatherhood and guidance on this little corner of the wide online world.
When I think about meekness and Aquinas wrote about meekness, he mentioned it’s not that we don’t get angry. It’s actually that our reason is dominant over our anger. Rather than anger dominating our reason. Because anger is actually okay when there’s a legitimate injustice. But we have to keep our heads about us. The real question is are we angry about the right thing? Are we angry in the right way? Are we angry to the right degree.
When I hear that I think about Christ in the temple as well. Because sometimes we picture Him almost pounding over these tables like He’s going to lose control in his anger. But He was the opposite of that right? Christ was so ordered that he was not losing His control. He was asserting control.
One thing I really liked about your point about marinating in our anger is I think something else happens here as well. Not only do we get angrier, we start sculpting the story that we tell ourselves about what happened because we’re looking at it through angry lenses. We stew in our anger and it molds us.
Because when we feel hurt we don’t know their intention. We view everything through our own lens of hurt. What we perceive as somebody being cruel is often times carelessness, or weakness, or fear, or someone operating out of their own wounds.
We hear that hurt people hurt people and I think that is so true. And often times when somebody does something, it may be because one of their own wounds was triggered and we are not privy to that.
It doesn’t make their behavior towards us any less real. It doesn’t excuse what they did but can change how we look at the person who inflicted it on us.
But if we sit and stew in that injury enough, we will convince ourselves we know exactly what someone else’s motives were when we didn’t know that to begin with.
That’s also why I think forgiveness needs truth. We’re not pretending that we didn’t get hurt, but we’re no longer allowing that hurt to become the lens through which we view everything.
Great piece. I loved it. Thank you so much Father.
I appreciate you bringing St. Thomas Aquinas to the discussion. I agree with his doctrine, just don't feel that I am often in the justifiable anger range. Most of the time, if I am angry, I am at least a little wrong.
Oh I'm with you there, Father! I don't think I've ever managed perfectly righteous anger. Perhaps I've been angry at the right time about the right thing, but I don't think it's ever come out in the right way! Because I think my own lens and my own wounds may in some way influence my reactions to things.
I think that’s why meekness is such a difficult virtue. Even when the anger itself is justified, I still have to ask how much of my reaction is actually about the injustice, and how much of it is about me.
Being a father has helped me see this a lot. Some people can really frustrate me for things that I can be incredibly patient about when one of my own children does them. So if my tolerance can move that much depending on who the person is, then clearly my own judgement isn't completely untouched by my feelings either.
For much of my marriage, I struggled (gave into) my swiftness to anger. It was destroying my marriage. Then, one evening, the Lord graced me with calming words in a moment when I was ready to descend into a fiery rage against my husband, who'd just said something he knew was cutting to me (I, too, had been doing the same to him...we were in a heated argument) and then fled upstairs to our room. I'd been cooking dinner and turned off the burner, ready to fly upstairs after him, spitting even worse rage.
And if I were to name just one moment in my life when I knew without a doubt the Lord had spoken to me, this was it. As I shoved the frying pan aside, I happened to glance up at the crucifix on my kitchen wall and at the exact same moment "heard" within me: "I died for you. Will you die fo Me?" With those words, the anger seemed to slip out of me. The shock of those words, of being confronted with their truth, calmed me like the sea Jesus rebuked. How could I say no to such a question? To do so was unthinkable.
Only the grace of God caused me to do what was next. I walked upstairs and met my husband in the hall. He was surely ready to defend himself against the tirade he was expecting. Instead, I kissed his cheek and said calmly, "I know you didn't mean what you said, and I forgive you for it. I'm sorry for what I said, too. Wanna come down for dinner?" And with that, he apologized as well and the fight was over.
I can't say I never gave into anger again. But it was a start. That question of Jesus' has stayed with me and through it (and through many more moments of grace), He has saved me and my marriage.
I don't know what I'm sharing, except that I don't think it was for me alone that He did that, and when I read this, it all came flooding back and felt like it needed to be shared. God bless you, Father, for your spiritual fatherhood and guidance on this little corner of the wide online world.
That's a beautiful witness.
I have been thinking a lot about anger the last few years and recognize it is a lot easier to preach what is right than to do what is right.
And I firmly believe that God is more patient with us than we are with ourselves.
Thanks for sharing your testimony.
Thank you for this Father. This was fantastic.
When I think about meekness and Aquinas wrote about meekness, he mentioned it’s not that we don’t get angry. It’s actually that our reason is dominant over our anger. Rather than anger dominating our reason. Because anger is actually okay when there’s a legitimate injustice. But we have to keep our heads about us. The real question is are we angry about the right thing? Are we angry in the right way? Are we angry to the right degree.
When I hear that I think about Christ in the temple as well. Because sometimes we picture Him almost pounding over these tables like He’s going to lose control in his anger. But He was the opposite of that right? Christ was so ordered that he was not losing His control. He was asserting control.
One thing I really liked about your point about marinating in our anger is I think something else happens here as well. Not only do we get angrier, we start sculpting the story that we tell ourselves about what happened because we’re looking at it through angry lenses. We stew in our anger and it molds us.
Because when we feel hurt we don’t know their intention. We view everything through our own lens of hurt. What we perceive as somebody being cruel is often times carelessness, or weakness, or fear, or someone operating out of their own wounds.
We hear that hurt people hurt people and I think that is so true. And often times when somebody does something, it may be because one of their own wounds was triggered and we are not privy to that.
It doesn’t make their behavior towards us any less real. It doesn’t excuse what they did but can change how we look at the person who inflicted it on us.
But if we sit and stew in that injury enough, we will convince ourselves we know exactly what someone else’s motives were when we didn’t know that to begin with.
That’s also why I think forgiveness needs truth. We’re not pretending that we didn’t get hurt, but we’re no longer allowing that hurt to become the lens through which we view everything.
Great piece. I loved it. Thank you so much Father.
Thanks so much Kevin.
Yes, it gives us a lot of work to do.
I appreciate you bringing St. Thomas Aquinas to the discussion. I agree with his doctrine, just don't feel that I am often in the justifiable anger range. Most of the time, if I am angry, I am at least a little wrong.
Oh I'm with you there, Father! I don't think I've ever managed perfectly righteous anger. Perhaps I've been angry at the right time about the right thing, but I don't think it's ever come out in the right way! Because I think my own lens and my own wounds may in some way influence my reactions to things.
I think that’s why meekness is such a difficult virtue. Even when the anger itself is justified, I still have to ask how much of my reaction is actually about the injustice, and how much of it is about me.
Being a father has helped me see this a lot. Some people can really frustrate me for things that I can be incredibly patient about when one of my own children does them. So if my tolerance can move that much depending on who the person is, then clearly my own judgement isn't completely untouched by my feelings either.
Thank you for writing this, Fr. Sheehy. It was very helpful.