Wrath 

Over the past month, Pope Francis has been giving a series of talks on the Seven Deadly Sins. In a recent reflection on wrath, our Holy Father described it as “a vice that destroys human relationships.” If left unchecked, anger over an incident or action often will end up aimed at the other person himself. That’s because, the Pope explains, these hurts can worsen with the passage of time. “In these cases, even distance and silence, instead of easing the burden of mistakes, magnifies them.” Suddenly, “it is the other person, the other as he or she is, the other as such, who provokes anger and resentment. One begins to detest the tone of their voice, their trivial everyday gestures, their ways of reasoning and feeling.” This is how anger can devolve into hatred, where we not only hate what someone did, we hate the person himself. 

Interestingly, Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim (Norway) also mentioned the sin of wrath in a recent interview about making spiritual progress during the season of Lent. He observes that, “A lot of us carry loads of anger of which we are not aware.” We lack awareness, he says, “because the sorts of things that inspire anger tend to be the sorts of things that humiliate and hurt us, so we suppress remembrance of them.” This can leave us with a proverbial “chip on our shoulder,” that inclines us to respond to things with a destructive form of anger that might lurk under an otherwise tranquil appearance. The moral and spiritual danger in this, Varden argues elsewhere, is that “unacknowledged reserves of anger, usually grounded in experiences of hurt, are major obstacles to freedom and peace in many people’s lives.”  

Referring to the story of Cain and Abel, Varden points to the resentment Cain had towards his brother, which flares up into murderous violence when his brother’s sacrificial offering is accepted by God, while his own is rejected. When we struggle with anger towards someone, especially someone close to us, Varden says that “the question we should ask ourselves is the one God poses [to Cain]: ‘Why are you angry and downcast?’ Once we understand the motivation underlying a mood, we can do something about it.” But this is difficult, especially if we have allowed anger to become a habitual response. That’s why the pope affirms the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” so that it might not have time to take root in our hearts. Overcoming the tendency to anger requires humility, which gives us the strength to ask for pardon. It also requires a cultivated disposition of goodwill towards others, giving them the same benefit of the doubt we would seek for ourselves. Varden suggests that “a good resolution this Lent might be to examine ourselves honestly in search of traces of hidden anger, with the resolve to clear it out.” Regular confession helps with this. There we receive the grace that heals our wounds while fostering greater charity and understanding toward our neighbor. 

posted 2/24/24