1 “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ” Ep. 4:31-32. There is a famous book written about seventy years ago and republished in the 1980’s called, The Man who got even with God. It is the story of John Hanning, who lived in the mid-nineteenth century, who suffered from a horrible temper and adopted the philosophy that he “always gets even.” This attitude eventually led him, one night, in a fit of anger because of a fight he had with his father, to burn down the family barn and all the crops in it. After doing this he left the family farm and wandered as a Texas cowboy for many years believing that this would answer his need to escape and isolate himself from anyone. Years later John returned home, mostly on account of the prayers of his dear mother, and reconciled with his family, returned to the Faith and entered a Cistercian Monastery, in Kentucky, to do penance for his many sins as a former fire bug, ex-rider of the plains and scoffer of the Catholic Faith. Although it was some years, in the monastery, for John to overcome his anger, which manifested itself when he once threatened to cut the throat of the Abbot with a razor blade, that he eventually achieved his goal of overcoming his anger and his homicidal tendencies and gained a reputation for holiness. John Hanning realized that the real solution to overcoming his anger lay within himself and not running away from others and not taking it out on his neighbour in the hopes that something positive would be accomplished. As with all sin, there is always present the primary sin of pride. Wounded egos need to take their anger out on others, because hurt people often hurt other people and are easily

2 slighted by others. What should be a passion for justice often turns out to be a passion for vengeance because of one’s egocentric self-interest. This is sinful anger. Anger is usually considered as an evil in itself, but in fact it is not. Not all anger is sinful. Persons who have been hurt, betrayed, and abused have every reason to be angry. We all have a right to be angry when there is injustice. St. Thomas Aquinas noted that “if one is angry in accordance with right reason, one’s anger is deserving of praise.” Our Lord gives us the example of justified anger when he drove out the money changers from the Temple and told them that they made His Father's house a den of thieves rather than a house of prayer. Jesus, in His human nature, had the entire range of emotion but used them not to commit sin. If you child was kidnapped and abused and you're not spitting mad than something is emotionally wrong with you. We should respond in a reasonable, responsible way to address the situation and so to this end St. Thomas quotes St. John Chyrsostom: "He that is angry without cause, shall be in danger; but he that is angry with cause, shall not be in danger for without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked." Anger can be a good when we channel it to effect positive change in our lives. Anger can lead us to setting goals and taking steps to change behaviour and better ourselves and our neighbour. Anger can lead us to setting goals and taking steps to change behaviour and better ourselves and others; anger over mistakes can lead us to humility. Anger must be directed toward the injustice and not in excess by delighting in hurting another. Anger can become a channel for destructive behaviours that causes harm to us or to others.

3 We often do not lash out at someone unless we have been harmed or we think that we have been wronged. When we speak of anger as a deadly sin, we are concerned with unjust anger; anger that is unjustified, excessive or revengeful and out of control. Anger can lead us to resentment when having to endure an insult or a perceived betrayal that than leads to unreasonable plotting and scheming. The Catholic Faith teaches against the anger that seeks to get even and this kind of unreasonable anger only destroys civilized life. When anger is excessive, revengeful, and unreasonably out of control so that our anger leads to fury, which is a feeling of hurt pride at having to endure some insult or unreasonable plotting and scheming to revenge another thought to be the cause of the hurt. Our Lord taught us to forgive our enemies and each time we pray the Our Father: “…forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are to treat our neighbour as we would want to be treated. We have sinned and do we want those sins to be always held against us by our Lord? No we also want forgiveness, understanding and mercy so in order to be forgiven we must first forgive. We can also lessen our anger by lowering our expectations and not expecting that everything will go my way. Often the angry, impatient person is living in an illusion that there is such a thing as a normal situation exempt from any difficulty. The patient person accepts reality; it is an imperfect world that does not revolve around me and the way I think things should be. Aristotle say: "the good tempered man is not disposed to take vengeance but rather to pardon."

4 There are also two aspects of forgiveness that people often misunderstand. It is believed that in order to forgive one needs to become friends or have a relationship with that person or that forgiveness is exclusively connected to some feeling. In confession I have counseled penitents to remember that when we forgive a wrong done to us we now have an obligation to like that person and throw our arms around them and love again; not necessarily. Yes, a part of forgiveness is that we often want to seek a rekindling of a friendship or a better relationship with family or friends. However that is not always the case and Christ commands us to love our neighbour but we don’t have to like them. We love them because God commands us to do so and when we love them we also want the best for them; primarily to achieve their salvation because they also walk the same path that we do. Our charity in praying for others is rebounded to us because we also gain by rising above the occasion and being the better person. God is not outdone in generosity. Another misunderstanding about forgiveness is the belief that there needs to be some emotional movement or connection in order for us to believe that we can forgive or have forgiven another. Forgiveness is not a feeling and what we often mistaken is that one cannot forgive because they cannot remove the emotion of anger against another and we don’t want to forgive because there are people who enjoy the feeling of anger; it prompts them to live and to act and get through the day. How sad, if that is us, where we allow anger to make our decisions for us instead of doing what is reasonable and charitable. So remember to forgive is an act of the will and we do not necessarily need an emotional connection to believe that we have forgiven.

5 Anger is a major issue with addicted personalities and codependents. They often harbour a lot of anger that has never been honestly addressed. Being insensitive to our own emotions and feelings is unhealthy. Anger needs to be acknowledged and processed even though most people are not comfortable with their anger, especially those who have grown up in emotionally oppressive environments where healthy expressions and emotions were at best frowned on and at worst strangled and disregarded. We deal with our anger by taking an account of it and where is it coming from? Anger over things we have no control of is a worthless use of energy. One of the sayings of Alcoholics Anonymous is: "hurt people hurt people." How true it is that sometimes misery loves company. Let us each examine our conscience and ask ourselves how well do we know ourselves? We know almost everything about everyone else but come up short changed when it comes to knowing our attachments & addictions. It is easy to turn the searchlight on our neighbour and point the finger but we come up with many excuses not to turn the finger around and make the same accusations to oneself. Those persons who are hard on themselves to overcome their sins are often easier on their neighbour and more forgiving and want to give benefit of doubt before flying into a rage and plotting hard to make them pay. As with all our passions, anger is meant for sake of love and caritas is the highest form of love; to sacrifice for the benefit of another. With the grace of God we come to have the interest of God in another person and anger is diminished by doing what is right with the virtue of forgiveness and patience.

6 "Lord, as You have dealt gently and patiently with me, help me to be gentle and patient in all the events of my life: in disappointments, in the thoughtlessness of others, in the insincerity of those I trusted, in the unfaithfulness of those upon whom I relied. Let me never be so self-concerned that I neglect to enjoy the happiness of others. May my struggles, pains, and heartaches teach me patience and help me grow closer to You. May my wounds be sacred, like Yours, and not bitter. May the understanding love You teach in your passion make me broad in my forgiveness, not narrow or proud. May no one be less good for having come within my influence; no one less pure, less true, less kind, less noble, for having been a fellow traveler with me in this pilgrimage of life. When trouble afflicts me, may I love you anyway, as You loved from the cross. May my life be lived in the radiance of Your presence with my heart set on the life that will never end and so be eternally happy with you who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen."