The danger

A healthy reaction to acts of injustice and the disruption of right relationships is anger. Anger, properly exercised, can spur us to respond to such acts by working to restore proper order. In this way and to this extent, anger serves the cause of justice.

However, anger can easily become wrath and further the disorder rather than serving as a catalyst for its correction. Anger is dangerous because it is difficult to control. According to Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital and author of the book How God Changes your Brain (2009), anger disrupts the frontal lobes of our brains where executive control resides. Consequently, when we are angry, our ability to be rational and the awareness that we are acting irrationally decrease. Further, when the functioning of the frontal lobes is interrupted, it becomes impossible to listen to and feel empathy for another.

Consider, for example, “road rage.” A driver does something (or is perceived to have done something) to disrupt the order on the roadway. The affected driver responds with an anger that erupts into wrath, or rage. The restoration of order through a correction of the behavior coupled with reconciliation between the drivers is lost as an end. Instead, the driver consumed with rage seeks only to hurt or destroy the cause of the disorder in a fit of passion.

Deadly wrath

Anger that becomes wrath does nothing to re-establish justice. It contributes to injustice through a double movement of destruction: outwardly against the perceived or real cause of the disorder, discussed in the previous section, and inwardly against the enraged person.

Since wrath is inherently disordered, we cannot give in to it and remain untouched by its destruction of rightly ordered relationships. Wrath alienates us from God, neighbor, creation and ourselves. It is a deadly sin precisely because such alienation is spiritual death for a people made for communion.

A remedy

The virtue of patience, or forbearance, can certainly aid us in withstanding the urge toward wrath when we are angry. Patience can help us avoid reacting negatively to provocation. This allows time for the anger to recede and for God’s justice and mercy to guide our response. In the Gospels, Jesus offers a great deal of advice in terms of building patience and short-circuiting the temptation to wrath: practicing forgiveness, praying for our enemies, working for reconciliation, spending quiet time in prayerful communion with God, offering up our suffering in self-sacrificial love, and avoiding “an eye for an eye” response to injustice.

Meekness as a mindset

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” (Mt 11:29)

Meekness connotes patience, mildness, gentleness, kindness and disinclination toward anger and resentment. Jesus’ entire life bears witness to his meekness. From his birth in a stable to his humiliating death on the cross, the Gospels relate the story of how Christ emptied himself out of love for God the Father and for us. He humbly obeyed all the commands he heard from his Father in heaven, accepting a crown of thorns instead of the power and fame offered to him by Satan in the desert. He knelt down to wash the feet of his Apostles and stood silently before the false accusations of the authorities instead of demonstrating his power to silence his critics.

How was Jesus able to do this? In Jesus, there was perfect order. His human will and desires were subjected to his reason, so he was never inclined to become wrathful – even in the face of the most horrible treatment. Thus he was able to pray for his persecutors and forgive them. His meekness was not weakness; in fact, it revealed the strength of his self-control and, ultimately, of his love.  

Meekness, as modeled by Jesus, is a safeguard against the ravages of wrath. It requires that we, too, empty ourselves of the false self and humble ourselves, becoming obedient.