#mildness

Art for little shark( o˘◡˘o)

I miss you already(

Each mean can have an access or deficiency, thus people with a deficiency of anger can be just as dangerous as those with an excess. There exists a righteous, necessary anger that every virtuous person must have…

I remember in elementary school (maybe 3rd, 5th grade, idk), the singular counselor we all shared would come in and talk to us about how to have feelings and such matters. I remember her telling us that joy and sadness were innate feelings, but that anger was a choice. That anger has no inherent place within our palette of emotions, and that we should choose to do away with this secondary emotion in favor of what is more basic.

Gal 5:25-26, 6:1-10; Luke 7:11-16

Here in the Rosary Shrine, I celebrate Mass both in the reformed Roman Rite, and also in the Dominican rite. Consequently, on most Sundays I would have a different set of Scripture readings to pray and think about, and so I would sometimes write two different sermons. Over the course of the year, as I’ve now read through the whole of the Lectionary in the older form of the Mass, I am frequently struck by the epistles that are appointed to be read during this time after Pentecost. The vast majority of the passages are from the pastoral epistles, which deal with relations among Christians. Hence the epistles read in the Mass are directed ad intra, instruction for the Christian assembled for divine worship, and they tell us how we are to treat one another, how we should behave within Christ’s holy Church, and thus the kind of virtues we should foster as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Consider, for example, this sentence from St Paul’s letter to the Galatians today: “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted.” Just before this passage, St Paul has listed the fruits of the Spirit, among which is gentleness. So, here again, he exhorts us to be gentle with one another, particularly when someone has fallen into sin, presumably even serious sin. In the Greek text, the fruit of the spirit, translated as gentleness is prautes, which means mildness of disposition, meekness, just as Christ says in Matthew 11:29 that he is “meek [or gentle] and lowly in heart”; the same Greek word, prautes is used here. The Latin translation by St Jerome, interestingly, uses two different Latin words for prautes. In Galatians 5:23, when St Paul lists the gifts of the Holy Spirit, prautes is translated as mansuetudo, which means tameness, mildness, clemency. And then, when the same Greek word recurs in today’s epistle passage, in Galatians 6:1, the translation of prautes is lenitas, which means softness, tenderness, and leniency. So, how are we to treat a fellow Christian who has fallen into sin? St Paul says that one who has the gifts of the Holy Spirit would behave gently, with mildness just as Christ is mild and un-condemning with us, and with leniency.

Why is this? Because we have clay feet, we are fallible sinful people too, because we too might be tempted and fall into sin. Hence, he says: “look to yourself”, watch out, mind your own business! Hence Our Lord also warns us in St John’s Gospel: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” (Jn 8:7). Or in St Matthew’s Gospel: “Judge not lest you be judged” (Mt 7:1), which is not a call for us to relinquish any discernment of right from wrong, but rather a warning not to presume to condemn another Christian. For, as St James says in his pastoral epistle: “He that… judges a brother… judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the Law but a judge. There is [but] one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you that you judge your neighbour?” (Jm 4:11-12)

The Holy Spirit, therefore, gives us his gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord, so that we might bear fruit, including the fruit of meekness, gentleness, lowliness of heart. For it is with a spirit of gentleness that we shall be kept from falling into the grave sin of spiritual pride, of judging and condemning a brother or sister in Christ. St Jerome’s use of the word mansuetudo, tameness, suggests that the Holy Spirit is seen to be at work in our lives when he tames us, and so we are held back from harsh judgment of a fellow Christian, and so we exhibit that other fruit of the Holy Spirit, namely, self-control.

Among the gifts of the Holy Spirit are those that affect our knowledge–firstly, knowledge concerning God and the revelations of God and the means to salvation. But also true knowledge about ourselves. So St Paul enunciates a fundamental truth for us in today’s epistle passage: “If any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Those who are wise, who fear God and who have understanding will be able to say, without self-recrimination or self-effacement or without destroying one’s proper sense of self-esteem, that, in truth, “I am nothing”. The great Dominican mystic, St Catherine of Siena, told her confessor, Bl. Raymond of Capua that Jesus appeared to St Catherine in a vision and told her: “You are she who is not.” With these words, this wisdom and knowledge imparted by a supernatural grace to her soul, St Catherine was thus given a remedy for pride.

For as Blessed Raymond of Capua went on to say: “Here is a healing remedy, for what wound of pride can enter into a soul that knows itself to be nothing? Who can glory in anything he does? And thus, all vices are driven out by the words, “You are not”. Then, Bl. Raymond adds: “Here too are many anxieties diminished. For, [as Blessed Raymond says] “whenever I or any of the other friars was afraid of any danger, Catherine would say, “What have you to do with yourselves? Leave it to Divine Providence. However much afraid you are, Providence still has his eyes on you and is always aiming at your salvation.”

This, my friends, is saintly wisdom, given from on high by the Holy Spirit. For many in our age are rapt in pride, and they do not even know it. Many people, for example, appear anxious to save the world, or to save the planet and its environment, or to save the Church, and their anxieties arise not because these causes are not worthy of our attention and care, but because they vaingloriously think that the salvation of the Church, of the world, of other people depends on them and their particular action, and so they become activists and campaigners, and they anxiously can think that the outcome depends on them. But St Catherine and Holy Scripture suggests that this is precisely the dangerous hidden deception of pride: to think that I myself am a saviour. But I am he who is not. So, “look to yourself” says St Paul. “Leave it to Divine Providence” says St Catherine. Hence today’s epistle says: “Let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Our spirit of meekness and gentleness towards our fellow Christians, therefore, overflows into benevolence for all people but especially for those who are also baptised into the true Faith, into the life of grace in Jesus Christ.

Sadly, many interactions among us Christians and particularly between Catholics on social media cannot be said by onlookers to be benevolent or gentle or meek in spirit, and this is true even when the comments are directed towards the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ! Earlier in his letter to the Galatians, before he lists the fruits of the Holy Spirit, St Paul lists the “works of the flesh”. Among them are “anger… dissension, party spirit” (cf Gal 5:20) – a better translation for the latter might be something like tribalism – and I think one has to honestly and prayerfully reflect on how we behave online, how we speak to one another and about one another, and then ask ourselves: do I exhibit the works of the flesh or the fruits of the Holy Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”, says St Paul (Gal 5:22-23).

Now, don’t get me wrong: sometimes we do need to fight for what is right, and to make a stand for the vulnerable as we did at the March for Life yesterday. Where sin abounds, we should do what we can in justice and in charity to stop it. However, we must do so in all humility, with gentleness and meekness, without judging and condemning the other, because we know that but for the grace of God, we too would and could and often do fall. For as Our Lord says: “Without me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5). Indeed, without God, we are nothing, and can do no good.