Righteous anger

AS one of the emotions, anger is part of our life. We cannot avoid it. In fact, there are times when we need to be angry, and when not getting angry is actually bad. It’s our instant defense mechanism before a present threat, an outlet for pent-up rotten feelings.

Christ himself, perfect God and perfect man, who is supposed to be slow to anger and rich in mercy, got angry a number of times.

We can recall what he did to those who converted the house of prayer into a house of business. He also barked at St. Peter—“Get behind me, Satan”—when St. Peter tried to restrain him from going to Jerusalem to face his death.

When he could no longer bear the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, he went into a kind of rage, calling them “frauds,” “whited sepulchers,” “blind guides,” “stiff-necked people,” etc.

This is not to mention the countless examples of divine wrath recorded in the Old Testament where God caused floods and famines, drowned armies, burned and destroyed cities, killed the first-borns, etc.

We have to understand though that anger, just like any emotion, cannot and should not be expressed without reason and purpose. As much as possible, it should not be allowed to explode in a vacuum, alone and spinning itself on its own self-generated inertia.

More than the other emotions, anger actually has great need to be anchored and focused, to be framed. Its inherent character of immediacy and violent potentials simply demands it. Thus, we should not just wait for it to happen. We have to prepare ourselves long and deep before it happens, if ever it has to happen.

Otherwise, that anger would be no different from a child’s tantrum, a drunk’s outburst, or a lunatic’s rage. It would be an inhuman anger, causing us more evil than good. It would be an anger that destroys more than it builds.

Much like a child that needs to be guided, anger also has to be escorted always by reason, and more—by faith and by charity. We should never allow our anger to go solo. It needs protection and direction. It needs to be educated. As much as possible, we have to avoid spontaneous anger.

Thus, we need to grow always in our understanding of our life in general, going beyond the material, individual, temporal and natural aspects all the way to the spiritual, social, eternal and supernatural dimensions.

Only in this context would our anger play out in a righteous way. Only in this way would it get its proper support and bearing.

Unfortunately, many people do not realize this, and would just allow their anger to develop and burst purely by dint of its animalistic instincts. They keep their anger raw and uneducated.

In fact, many people get surprised by the idea that anger needs to be educated, trained and refined. They even think that by its very nature, anger should be kept wild and crude. Otherwise, it would not be anger anymore.

Some have allowed anger to deteriorate into its uglier forms, affecting more and more people and manifesting itself from simple cases of road rage, passionate killings, to systemic racial hatred, massacres and all forms of terrorism.

We have to disband this mentality, freeing it from any ideological error, cultural deficiency or historical blunders that may go into that attitude. Of course, if it’s already a matter of character, then we have a graver challenge of how to effect the change for the better.

Righteous anger is when we manage to be in control of the situation even if we get angry or even need to be angry, when we still have a sense of proportion between the causes and effects of anger, when we are certain that such anger can lead to a good, constructive end.

Righteous anger also knows how to repair hurts and damages that can sometimes come unavoidably. It always gets resolved in a happy ending, one way or another. It restores and even strengthens and enriches friendships and relations. It stays away from bitterness, rancor and desire for revenge.

It’s an intelligent anger, motivated by faith in God and love for him and for souls. It’s compatible with patience and mercy. The final test, it seems to me, is when the object of such anger becomes thankful for it.