Antidote to Anger

A few years ago, a university in Scotland ran a number of experiments aimed at analyzing basic human emotions. Over the course of several days, the test subjects lived their lives as normal, but with sensors attached discreetly to different parts of their heads, to measure which emotions they experienced. Of the four basic human emotions – happiness, sadness, fear, and anger – the study was interested in finding out which emotion was most frequently experienced.

Can you guess which one it was? Believe it or not, the test subjects’ most frequently registered emotion was anger. It seems that anger is the emotion that most often disrupts our equilibrium – we experience happiness, sadness, fear, etc., but much less often day to day than we experience anger, and all of its forms: frustration, exasperation, irritability, inconvenience. Most of us probably don’t consider ourselves to be angry people, but this study indicated that’s the emotion we experience more than any other.

In our first reading today, the writer of the Book of Sirach warns that we must be mindful of how anger can shape the way we act. Anger as an emotional reaction is not always sinful; often, it is an impulse that we can do little to control. But what we do next – how we react after feeling anger – is very much a moral decision. Feeling angry is not wrong, but responding in anger is, whether it’s in thought, word, or action. The writer of Sirach tells us that anger which seeks vengeance, that demands retribution from another, can be deadly. The original injury is made worse by our fixation upon it, a brooding that leads to even greater anger. In time, anger often leads to resentment, and resentments are never healthy, because by their nature they are a wound that we refuse to let heal.

If anger is so common, yet can be so spiritually damaging, what are we to do? Jesus has the answer in the Gospel today. Peter asks him the very logical question about how many times we must forgive; forgiveness is obviously good and necessary, but at what point does it become impossible or ridiculous to keep forgiving someone who keeps offending us? Jesus’s answer is surely one that shocked Peter: seventy-seven times. That’s how it is rendered here; in another Gospel, it is seventy times seven times. What’s meant is not an exact numerical formula, but rather the idea that we forgive as often as and as soon as another asks for forgiveness. In other words, whether we think of the wrathful vengeance of the Old Testament, or the quiet hardness of heart with which we are more familiar, a refusal to forgive is something completely contrary to the Christian identity.

Claude Vignon, The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (1629)

Jesus explains the rationale for forgiveness with the parable we heard. Notice that the king’s first servant, the one who owes much, is asked for forgiveness only after being forgiven. Yet, despite having just received mercy himself, indeed the forgiveness of his entire debt, he refuses to show mercy in return. Why? Because he’s angry; he has become so dominated by his emotional response to not having received payment that he has forgotten the fact that his entire debt has been forgiven. That’s why, in the eyes of the king, his sin is not just refusal to forgive the debt but also the lack of gratitude for the forgiveness shown to him. If this man had truly understood and appreciated the mercy shown to him, he would have shown it by forgiveness as well.

Perhaps you can see where this is going: the same dynamic is true in our relationship with God. There’s no doubt that we suffer offenses and sins at the hands of others, sometimes even great ones. But while we are sometimes rightly angered by what others have done to us, we are not innocent ourselves – we too have offended others, and God above all. That’s why the Christian person first remembers how much he or she has been forgiven by the Lord. Remembering how God has forgiven us can be a kind of antidote to anger, a way of preventing ourselves from going down the road toward resentment. God offers us his mercy in any number of ways; for us as Catholics, most powerfully and most effectively in the sacrament of reconciliation. If this grace of forgiveness has been shown to us, we must prove that we truly understand and appreciate it by showing it to others. 

I often hear from people that we struggle with holding a grudge toward someone who has hurt them. On the one hand, this is very understandable; we all feel anger at being hurt and are wary of being hurt again, and it can be especially hard to forgive someone who has hurt us greatly or who shows no remorse. But, on the other hand, we have to recognize that those inclinations toward resentment and hardness of heart are temptations, and we can choose to follow them or not. The Christian person must never, *never* let themselves give in to thinking, “I cannot forgive that person” or “I will not forgive you.” Why? Because we remember how much has been forgiven of us in Christ. Forgiveness is not something we do once we no longer feel angry or hurt; rather, it is a choice, a decision that is made precisely when we still do feel those things, so that the healing which has been given to us can be given in return. And if we are having trouble forgiving, perhaps that is a good spiritual clue that it has been too long since we have had the experience of being forgiven ourselves. Maybe we need to go to confession to receive mercy so that we can then show mercy in return.

Friends, in a few moments, we will say together the Lord’s Prayer, using the very words that Jesus taught us. And in that prayer, we will say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We should not pass lightly over those words. We are literally telling God that the way we treat others – either showing them mercy, or not – indicates to him whether we want mercy from him, or not. Let’s make sure our forgiveness and our receiving forgiveness are not hindered by our anger, and especially not by resentment, vengeance, and refusal to forgive. In the Eucharist we will celebrate shortly, we will receive the One who offers us forgiveness, who heals us of resentment, so that we can show others mercy as He has shown it to us.

Not Judgment but Reconciliation

Several years ago, Pope Francis was flying back to Rome after visiting another country, when he took some time to answer some questions from journalists who were with him on the plane. In the answer to one question, he spoke about God’s mercy, one of the theological themes that has been most prominent in his papacy. He concluded his answer with some famous words, “Who am I to judge?” The pope’s comments made headlines around the world, and people were impressed: the Shepherd of the universal Church, the Vicar of Christ on earth was humble enough to say he couldn’t be the judge of the heart of another.

We all know that it is wrong to judge. After all, Jesus said, “Judge not lest you be judged”, right? Unfortunately, we also are not very good at actually following that teaching. Too often, when someone offends us, or causes us some grief, or does something about which we disapprove, we judge them straight away: we make conclusions about their intentions, or about their character, or about how they will act in the future. And often we go and tell everyone else about it – everyone that is, except the person who wronged us.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus explains a better way to act. What he encourages us to do is difficult, and it might make us uncomfortable. It may even seem that what he advises runs counter to what he said elsewhere – about the importance of not judging. After all, “who are we to judge?” But there is a difference between judging someone – judging their entire person, judging their soul – and speaking with them about their offense against us. In fact, addressing a wrong done to us by another person might actually help us to refrain from judging the person. To use an old adage, we can “hate the sin but love the sinner”. And sometimes part of loving the sinner, as Jesus explains today, is helping them to understand and to be sorry for what they did.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ Preaching ('La Petite Tombe') (c. 1652)

So let’s take a closer look at what Jesus says. He begins: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.” A few of those words jump out to me. “Alone” – that is, we don’t share the other’s sin with anyone and everyone else; we go to them directly. “Sins against” – in other words, we’re not talking about a petty fault or a minor inconvenience. It needs to be something important, something that hasn’t just harmed us, but has harmed the one who did it and our relationship with them. And “Brother” – this isn’t a stranger or an acquaintance; in those cases, when someone hurts us, it is often best to let it go. Even when it is a brother or sister, someone from our family, or someone we are connected to in friendship, in faith, in some other relationship, sometimes we can make great strides spiritually by forgiving hurts, especially if the other does not realize they have hurt us.

But, if it is something important – Jesus says, “a sin” – first we go to them directly and alone and explain how we have been hurt. If speaking privately doesn’t work, then Jesus says to bring in one or two others, or even “the church,” that is the broader community of believers. This is *not* a permission to gossip about the other person, but rather an effort to help them understand that what they did is truly bad, and not just from our viewpoint. If they still won’t listen to us, then we have to treat them, Jesus says, “like the Gentile and the tax collector.” That is not to say that we shun them – Jews of Jesus’s day couldn’t completely avoid Gentiles or tax collectors – and it doesn’t mean we write them off either, since that would be judging. Rather, it means we limit our interactions with them; we are wary of allowing them to hurt us again. Those who are hardened in their sin – those who have “hardened their hearts,” as the psalmist says today – often can’t be made to understand by anyone except God himself, by the power of his grace. That’s why we should always pray for those who hurt us – even those who don’t realize it, even those who have been hardened by years of sin. Nothing and no one is beyond God’s reach.

Finally, friends, let’s remember that all of this can work the other way, too. If Jesus permits us to help our brother to recognize and repent when he has sinned against us, then just as much or more is he also giving permission for our brother to help us to recognize and repent when it is we who have done the sinning. To correct someone else, or to be corrected ourselves, can be challenging and humbling, but it is all in service of the greater good, aimed at reconciliation. And that’s why it is *not* judging – because the goal is restoring the relationship, so that we and the other person can keep encouraging each other to further growth, further holiness.

May this Eucharist, the Sacrament of Charity, help us to open our hearts to reconciling with those who have hurt us, and prompt us to seek it with those whom we have hurt.