The Holy Priest-Martyr Dionysius the Areopagite
Ephesians 4:25-32; Luke 3:19-22
Read Ephesians 4:25-32
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Anger. There seems to be a lot out there nowadays. Some might even say that we have seen an increase it recently as the pandemic seemingly in receding. But is that actually the case? Has anger always been around? Paul’s words to the Ephesians are echoed in the writings of St. John Chrysostom that seem rather wise for us today. Ponder the following reflection:
Wherefore, let us, I beseech you, do all we can to extinguish our enmities before the going down of the sun. For if you fail to master it on the very first day, both on the following, and oftentimes even for a year, you will be protracting it, and the enmity will thenceforward augment itself, and require nothing to aid it. For by causing us to suspect that words spoken in one sense were meant in another, and gestures also, and everything, it infuriates and exasperates us, and makes us more distempered than madmen, not enduring either to utter a name, or to hear it, but saying everything in invective and abuse. How then are we to allay this passion? How shall we extinguish the flame? By reflecting on our own sins, and how much we have to answer for to God; by reflecting that we are wreaking vengeance, not on an enemy, but on ourselves; by reflecting that we are delighting the devil, that we are strengthening our enemy, our real enemy, and that for him we are doing wrong to our own members. Would you be revengeful and be at enmity? Be at enmity, but be so with the devil, and not with a member of your own. For this purpose it is that God has armed us with anger, not that we should thrust the sword against our own bodies, but that we should baptize the whole blade in the devil’s breast. There bury the sword up to the hilt; yea, if you will, hilt and all, and never draw it out again, but add yet another and another. And this actually comes to pass when we are merciful to those of our own spiritual family and peaceably disposed one towards another (Homily on Ephesians).