Every Wednesday night, as part of Night Prayer in the Breviary, the Church provides as a final thought for the day a quotation from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. That citation is, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil.” (Ep 4:26-27).

 

This is good counsel for us, not only for our spiritual lives but also humanly speaking. We live in a society where anger has become, in many ways, the primary component of any discussion.

 

It is disheartening to turn on the television or to follow the news reports on the internet about our politicians. Their statements and comments back and forth, our public political discourse, is regularly filled with harsh and angry words. Sports radio or general commentary is likewise often filled with inflammatory and personally demeaning comments.

 

Angry comments, and the sentiments they reflect, are not simply passing moments like a clap of thunder that sounds in our ears and then moves on with the storm. 

 

If anger is not controlled and prayed over — if anger is allowed to fester — it leads to further attitudes and actions that separate us from charity and the love of God and neighbor for which we were made.

 

St. Paul’s comment to the Ephesians does not condemn all anger. How could he? Anger is one of the passions that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches are natural to our human nature. Love which brings about a desire for an absent good is another of these passions. 

 

Passions can direct us to what is good or they can become a vice which infects our reason and our will and so lead us into sin.

 

St. Paul recognizes that there is such a thing as just anger. Jesus’ cleansing of the temple is often cited as such a case. He did overturn tables and drive the money changers out of the temple.

 

But in reading the Gospels, we know the person of Jesus. He was zealous for His Father and for the sanctity of the temple. At the same time, we regularly encounter the patience of Jesus. We see that especially in the manner in which He interacts with the Pharisees who try to trap Him. We recall even His love for Judas whom He knew was to betray Him. 

 

Jesus was a model for us of someone who was not what we would call an angry person, holding on to grudges or seeking revenge.

 

Paul goes on to say, “… do not let the sun set on your anger.” In other words, if we are justly angry, perhaps because we have witnessed a real injustice, we still must let our anger go. We cannot hold on to it until it takes possession of us.

 

When that happens, we lose our sense of internal peace which comes from God. As a result, anger seeks that hurting insult, that last word in the argument. Then sin can become more deeply rooted and spread to other areas of our life, or even to others with whom we interact.

 

We need prayer and sincere spiritual efforts to get past anger, to avoid gratuitous angry thoughts or actions, and to seek forgiveness from those toward whom we have become unjustly angry.

 

God has placed within our nature passions and feelings. They motivate us for good or evil. But we have the grace to overcome sin and anger. We can resolve to use our freedom and our spiritual lives to be done with anger. Our society needs our example of charity, not wrath, even as we give witness to our faith before a doubting world.