Twenty-fourth Sermon, introduction and first part (paras 2369–2427)

1. Anger is a vice which is contrary to sound reason. 2. How one may and must control and repress the movements of anger, as well in himself as in others.—Preached on the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost.

Text.

Et iratus Dominus ejus.—Matth. xviii. 34.

"And his Lord being angry."

Introduction.

Just and righteous cause had this lord to be angry with his wicked servant; for, would not even the mildest of men be displeased at seeing, that, although the servant was forgiven the enormous debt of ten thousand talents, yet he acted so harshly with his fellow-servant, who owed him but a hundred pence, and who begged him in the most humble manner to have patience with him, that he had him cast into prison for the trifling debt. "And his lord being angry." Just indeed was that anger! How often, my dear brethren, do not Christians give way to anger and resentment against their fellow-men, without the least cause, and without having ever suffered anything at their hands? How many there are who, when things do not go according to their wishes, at once give expression to the bitterest feelings against those whom they suspect to be the cause of their failure! Oh, woe to such people, if the Almighty were to deal in a similar manner with them, every time they offend Him by sin, which they do daily! For, as Our Lord says in to-day's Gospel: "So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts." If that threat is uttered against all who refuse to forgive those who have injured them, what will they have to expect who give way to anger against their neighbor on the least provocation, and make use of injurious and insulting words towards him? I will now speak of this anger through which most men commit sin nearly every day, and which is a fruitful cause of other sins.

Plan of Discourse.

Anger is a vice which is most contrary to sound reason. This I will show in the first part. How one may and must control and repress the movements of anger as well in himself as in others. This I will show in the second part.

Give us Thy powerful grace, O Jesus, that we may all learn to practise patience and meekness, and thus be true children of our heavenly Father; this we ask of Thee through the intercession of Mary, Thy Mother, and our holy angels guardian.

As I told you on a former occasion, when speaking of drunkenness, Lacedaemonians, in order to deter their children from this abominable vice, used to make their slaves drunk, and bring their children in, to see them in that state. Their disgusting appearance, their unbecoming gestures, their uncertain gait, their incoherent speech, and the other effects of intoxication that were observable in them, made the children look on them as a strange kind of wild animal. Thus from their very childhood, the Lacedaemonians were filled with horror for a vice so unbecoming a reasoning being. In the same way, my dear brethren, in order to see how anger is opposed to reason, we need only imagine that we see an angry man giving vent to his feelings. See how disturbed he looks; with his face alternately red and pale and swollen with passion, his eyes darting forth fire, his teeth grinding with rage, his lips compressed, his whole body trembling, his fist clenched, his tongue full of gall; his silence is a continued discordant growl, his speech nothing but invective! Would not one have reason to think that he is completely mad and out of his mind, or else that he has been transformed into a wild beast? In fact he is called a fool by the Holy Ghost in the Book of Ecclesiastes; "Be not quickly angry; for anger resteth in the bosom of a fool;" and a savage and unreasoning beast, in the Book of Proverbs: "As the roaring of a lion, so is the anger of a king."

And in fact, while his anger lasts, are any of his actions such as could be said to proceed from sound reason? No; everything he does seems strange and unreasonable; he appears to have lost all power over himself; he speaks whatever his passion suggests to him, without knowing what he says. All kinds of curses and oaths come forth from his mouth;

he blasphemes God and man, and says things that he would never dream of otherwise. He gets into quarrels and disputes that he repents of and is heartily sorry for when he comes to himself. He strikes out blindly, not knowing whom he has before him, whether it is a friend or enemy, a stranger or an intimate. Those who have never injured him, even his own wife and children must keep out of his way. In a word, as the Holy Ghost says: "The impatient man shall work folly."

If we consider the causes which generally excite to anger, we shall see still clearer, how unreasonable it is to give way to that passion. Amongst the mountains of Switzerland there was discovered a small lake, which was of very insignificant size, but it was so sensitive that if the least thing were thrown into it, its waters would at once begin to boil and bubble up with the greatest fury; a stone thrown into it would cause such a commotion, that the sky would be darkened by the vapor rising from the lake, and a fearful thunderstorm would be sure to follow. Kircher says that a certain Margrave of Baden, wished to have ocular proof of this wonder; he threw a small stone in the lake, and a thunderstorm arose that lasted for seven whole days, and threatened to destroy the whole country.

It is not my purpose to trace this strange occurrence to its cause. But I am firmly convinced that they who are excited to anger by a mere nothing, may trace their passion to the devil, who is fond of hiding himself in the troubled waters of a passionate man's heart. A harmless joke, a ludicrous gesture, a word of contradiction are so many small stones; but they are big enough to raise a thunderstorm; they are often the cause of quarrelling and contention, of abuse and reviling, so that they turn friendship into enmity.

Consider the anger and resentment of Achab; one would think that some terrible misfortune had befallen him; he became melancholy and refused to leave his bed; he would not touch food or drink, and did nothing but look at the bare wall. "And casting himself upon his bed, he turned away his face to the wall, and would eat no bread." But, Achab, what was the matter with you? Were you suffering from fever, or was your stomach out of order, or had any other illness attacked you? No; nothing of the kind. And why was he then so distressed and disturbed? A rude answer was the sole cause of his bitterness. Achab wished to purchase a certain vineyard; he sent for the owner, Naboth, and asked him to exchange it with him. Naboth, instead of excusing himself in a polite manner, or acceding to the king's request, answered gruffly, "The Lord be merciful to me, and not let me give thee the inheritance of my fathers." This seemingly uncourteous answer was the little stone that aroused all Achab's wrath; "And Achab came into the house angry and fretting, because of the word that Naboth had spoken to him." Mark these words, my dear brethren, the Holy Scripture does not say that he was angry because of the deed, but because of the word. What great power a little word has on a passionate disposition. Was it worth while to get so angry for such a trifle; to throw himself on his bed, and refuse to eat or drink? See what power a little word had over him. Seneca writes that Vedius Pollio once condemned a slave to be thrown into a fish-pond for having broken a glass vessel, while waiting at table. Fortunately for the slave, the emperor Augustus was present, and he was so disgusted at the cruel sentence, that he had the slave set free and ordered every glass vessel in Pollio's house to be broken, so that the latter might not have so many opportunities of giving way to anger, and of sacrificing human life for the sake of a broken glass. Still more senseless was the conduct of the two shepherds; they were out one fine night on a hill, looking at the beautiful sky with its twinkling stars. Oh, said one, if I had land as long and as broad as the sky, how rich I should be. And if I, said the other, had as many sheep as there are stars in the sky, should I not be rich also? But, asked the first, where would you find pasturage for such a number of sheep? In your meadow, of course, was the answer. What, you would pasture them on my fields? Yes, why not? You would not dare to do it. Would you prevent me? I would; if I caught your sheep in my meadow, I would kill every one of them! I should like to see you, said the other; and so one word borrowed another, until in a short time they were hard at it, fighting away with one another until they both fell down the hill.

See, my dear brethren, for what worthless things an irascible and ill-tempered man gives way to his passion, when he does not know how to control its first movements. A doubtful answer given to a question of his, the least fault committed by one who is living in the same house, the silence of one, the loquacity of another, a thoughtless word, a well-meant contradiction on the part of his wife, the crying of his innocent children, the slowness, or precipitation, or awkwardness of his servants, nay, even his own faults stir up his ill-humor, and make him fill the whole house with confusion and discord. Even things that it is out of our power to improve or to change, such as inclement weather, a harsh wind, a difficulty in some work or other, a stubborn horse, a howling dog, an ill-tuned instrument, a blunt knife, a bad pen, a cup or glass broken by accident or even by his own fault, and a thousand other similar trifles are capable of making him quite beside himself with anger; so that he begins to curse and swear, and gets in a great passion. Now, is that the way in which a sensible man should act? Are such things to be deemed a sufficient cause for losing one's temper and often disturbing the whole family?

Oh, some will say, it is easy to call these things trifles; you do not know how things go on in our house; I should have as little feeling as a stone, if I were to pass them over in silence. When my drunken husband comes home the worse for drink, have I not reason to be angry? When my good-for-nothing, fault-finding wife criticises everything I do, how can I keep my temper? Must I not get angry if my servants do not do what I tell them? Have I not reason to be displeased, when I see my children running about the house, and doing what they like? When I meet that troublesome neighbor of mine, with whom I have a lawsuit, I should have the patience of Job to be able to control myself. If others did not interfere with me, I should be all right; but as things are, I cannot keep my temper. Ah, my dear Christian, you are making a great mistake and deceiving yourself! It is not your husband, nor your wife, nor your servant, nor your child, nor your neighbor, nor any one else that is the cause of your giving way to anger: you yourself are to blame especially. Your over-sensitiveness, which does not allow you to bear the least annoyance from others; your obstinacy, which makes you try to have everything according to your own ideas; your imagination, which makes a mountain out of a mole-hill; your suspicious character, which you neither mortify nor restrain; the bad habit you have so long indulged in, of giving way to anger at the least provocation; these are the real causes of your ill-humor and anger. If you had learned a little Christian patience and meekness, you would not be at all disturbed by hundreds of such trifles, or at all events, you would not give such violent and unreasonable expression to your feelings.

Well does the Prophet David pray to God in the name of all passionate people: "Turn away my reproach, which I have apprehended." Mark the words, "which I have apprehended;" the meaning is: This reproach is not only groundless as far as I am concerned, so that I do not believe I have deserved it; but also it has no existence even on the part of others, for it was simply the result of my own sensitiveness. My imagination began to trouble my heart, although I had no wrong to complain of. Balladius relates a ludicrous incident, which will serve to illustrate my subject. St. Vincent was once describing in a sermon the contest of St. Margaret with the devil. A courageous, but foolish young man, who was listening to him, thought that he should like to try a similar adventure. Full of this idea, he went off to a ruined and deserted hut, in the hope that the devil would come to visit him there, and engage in a struggle with him. While he was looking for the arch-enemy in every corner, he saw a poor old woman with a sickle in her hand who had come to cut a few bundles of grass in the field. The young man looked at her, and at once came to the conclusion that she must be the devil. Avaunt! wicked spirit, said he, I know you in spite of your disguise, by the sickle you hold in your hand, and by your flaming eyes! With these words, he threw off his mantle, made the sign of the cross a countless number of times, rushed upon the poor old creature and threw her on the ground, treating her as if she were an old sack. She was utterly unable to cry for help, but she defended herself as well as she could with her sickle and with the few teeth she had left. The contest lasted some time, until at length it attracted the notice of some people, who came up and found the two combatants bathed in blood. The poor woman suffered so severely, that she died of her wounds a few hours after. It was certainly a grand thing to gain such a victory over an old woman, and then to boast as if it had been the foul fiend himself who was vanquished! All passionate people act in the same way. They attack those from whom they imagine they have received an insult, with as much fury, as if it was against the devil himself that they were directing their efforts. If you had a little patience, you would be able to see that an old woman is not the devil. That neighbor of yours has a sharp tongue and says annoying things to you sometimes, but she is not the devil; she has nothing against you; she neither despises you nor wishes to do you the least harm; her sickle will not hurt you;

she is only an old woman and not the devil. The same is to be said of all the other things that are likely to excite your ill-temper; they are not half so bad as they seem; the wrong exists only in your own imagination, and you might say with the Prophet, "my reproach which I have apprehended." The truth of this you are often forced to acknowledge to yourself when your fit of anger is over, and you are obliged to confess that the faults which caused you to get into a passion were really of very trifling importance after all. For instance, a week ago your husband drank too much; a week ago your wife contradicted you, or your child broke something, or your servant was disobedient, etc. Now I ask you, are you as much inclined to anger at those faults at the present moment, as you were a week ago, when you gave vent to your passion in curses and injurious expressions? Certainly not. But why? The fault is just as great now as it was then. Why do you not think it deserving of the same anger? The only reason is, that then your passion was excited, and you imagined the fault much greater than it really was, so that your unbridled passion was the cause of your anger, and it made you act in direct opposition to the dictates of reason.

And what does the passionate man gain by giving way to his temper? Nothing, but that he makes his temper worse and more difficult to be controlled, causes himself a great deal of pain and annoyance by imagining that people are treating him unjustly, injures his health and shortens his life; for, according to what physicians say, there is nothing more injurious to health, than to give way to anger; and makes himself hateful to the members of his own family and contemptible to all sensible men. For as meekness and amiability make one respected and loved by all, so a man of a passionate disposition, who gets angry at the least trifle, is simply unbearable; he is looked upon as one who is utterly incapable of self-control, who constantly forgets himself and exposes his weaknesses to every one.

Thus he becomes a burden to himself, for when his anger is over, he sees how foolishly he has acted, and of course he must be ashamed of himself.

Finally, what should most of all deter one from anger, is the fact that thereby God is offended, and His wrath and malediction are incurred on account of the many sins against Christian charity that arise from it. For that unnatural cursing, swearing, and abusive language, quarrelling and fighting, long-continued hatred and enmity, discord and strife, vindictiveness and sometimes even murder, nay even blasphemy against the Most High, are all children of anger, and God will not allow them to go unpunished. Therefore, in order to preserve us from those sins, our Lord pronounces this sentence against anger, in the Gospel of St. Matthew: "Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment;" but he who through deliberate anger, "shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." Therefore, my dear brethren, let us do all in our power to avoid such a detestable vice, which runs directly counter to sound reason, and is a cause of so many sins. "Let all bitterness and anger, and indignation and clamor, and blasphemy be put away from you, with all malice." Such is the warning of St. Paul. But what are we to do in order to check this evil inclination, to which we are all subject? That we shall see in the