"Everyone should be … slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1: 19-20)

Meditation:
Anger has been compared more than once, and rightly so, to insanity. An angry person is beside himself, like a madman. He loses touch with and cannot control himself. He is in a kind of moral intoxication, his thoughts are confused, his gaze is clouded, and he becomes completely imbalanced. A person in such angry turmoil is like a boat without a rudder, thrown by the storm in every direction, and during this time, be it long or short, it’s as if his will becomes clouded, and his sense of self is lost because of the reigning passion. “Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city” (Prov. 16: 32), as King Solomon says.

Centuries do not change this terrible passion. Anger is still the same as it was before, and although we do not always give it free rein, nevertheless the same feeling boils within us, and we realize that frenzy is overcoming us.

Our justifications are of no use. We insist that our anger is justified, that we are fighting for the truth and goodness, and that we are zealots for God’s justice. He does not need our efforts! God’s truth will be revealed without our assistance. But we, to the contrary, only drown out His voice by our furious passion, we darken His image by our restlessness, and we bring harm to a good cause by excessive zeal: this is what we must realize, to our shame.

Parents, mentors and leaders – everyone who has power over others – remember that one must guide with love and firmness, but without harshness. Remember that “anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires”. The Lord Himself, although His ways are sinless, is “slow to anger”. Therefore, in carrying out God's will on earth, let us first of all imitate Him, Who is “gentile and humble of heart”.