Anger

By Priest George Calciu

Be angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Neither give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:26-27).
From personal experience and from my experience as a spiritual father [confessor] and
from my observations in society, I have found that one of the endemnic sins of society
today is anger. This sin can have personal aspects [better word?] and also group aspects.
Because one is individual anger and the other is the anger of a people which can lead to
destructive war, for a short or a long time, but borne with a cruelty which technology of
the past centuries could not perform. This modern war can, without a doubt, change the
geography and the demography of the world, its political map, promoting the installation
of a world dictatorial regime.
Personal anger transforms the heart of a man from a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit into
a demonized house, because it changes the spiritual structure of the soul, orienting it
toward the dark zones [regions] of the human being. History knows disastrous events
brought about by anger and tragic occurrences caused by impetuous anger, which created
regrets and ------ [desnadejdi] in he who allowed himself to be seized by it.
The Holy Scripture is very intensely preoccupied with the problem of anger, although,
taking into consideration the possibility of how it relates to more ancient times, we
understand that the motives for anger were less frequent than in our times, when human
beings, through the growth of population density and through the means of
communication, the space of personal security is reduced to a minimum. And, without a
doubt, that the appearance of anger stands, to the largest extent, as the temptation which
the devil uses to tempt us, knowing that anger darkens the mind and arms [furnishes,
provides] the tongue and hands with a violence which seriously wounds.
In the Old Testament, because of the many sins of the Jewish people, God was angry with
them and he loosed the invasion of the nations upon Isreal, who conquered it and
eventually brought them into slavery, either for a short or a long time. After long
repentance and the scourge [lash] of the prophets, the Jews returned to the true faith and
God restored them to the state they were in before falling into sin.
We will not follow this anger of Godthe Old Testament is full of it. We are interested in
anger as a human sin and its results in the personal and social realms.
In Chapter 34 of Genesis, there is a cause [motive, reason] for anger of Jacobs sons.
Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, was dishonored by the son of the prince of the
country of Shalem. This deed provoked anger in Jacobs sons who decided to avenge
[take revenge], even though the youth we are talking about asked Dinah to marry him.

The place where Jacob had settled, not far from Shalem, was very convenient [suitable]
for many reasons for his family. But his sons were roused to anger and the desire for
revenge. When the youth from Shalem asked for the hand of Dinah, his brothers
answered deceitfullythat it would be shameful for their sister to marry one who is
uncircumcised. And they asked that all the males of the town be circumcised, and they
accepted. After two days, when all the men were still in pain, Jacobs sons entered into
the city at night with their servants and slew the fianc and his father and all the men with
the sword. Then they robbed the city of all its wealth and took the women and children
captive. Thus, under the impulse of anger, they used the sacred vow of Abraham with
God (circumcision) as a deception through which they carried out their revenge,
overlooking [disregarding] the holy for their personal satisfaction. When Jacob found out,
he said to his sons: Ye have troubled meto make me to stink among the inhabitants ofhe
land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites (Genesis 34:30).
And Jacob had to depart from that place with all who were with him and all his wealth,
where he had wanted to stay, because of the uncontrolled anger of his sons, leaving
behind a spoiled city and murdered men, followed by the hate and anger of the
inhabitants of that region.
This intervention of the devil in arousing the anger of the sons of Jacob and, as a result,
the inhabitant of the region, was unto the fulfillment of the road toward the Promised
Land. The meaning of this history is like all that happens as part of the will of God,
through which He communicates to us something or drives us toward something which
we must fulfill, but this does not mean that the sin of anger remains unpunished.
The Christian, however, must not get angry. He knows that God watches over him and
that not a hair of his head falls without the Lords knowledge. In relation to his neighbors,
he must temper his anger, because the Savior was not ------ [s-a maiat] against those who
mocked and crucified Him. Will we get angry against our neighbors knowing that he is
the image of God? Indeed, how can we utter words of anger against him if he did
something to us, knowing well that we have done the same thing to him or to another, and
even worse?
Man today lives under such unbearable [overwhelming] pressure that his nerves are
strained to the maximum and any reason [conflict] that turns up raises up in us anger,
which is a sin. One cause for anger is the child who does not obey us [listen to us], or the
husband or wise who contradicts us; the driver who cuts us off with his car, or only seems
to us to cut us off, gives a motive for us to be roused to anger. Even if, through selfrestraint, our anger is not outwardly expressed or is not heard by the one who provoked it,
it is still a sin, because it harms [disfigures, corrupts] our soul and our heart. It is an
action against ourself, under the temptation of the devil to anger.
The Savior forewarns us in harsh terms concerning anger which gives birth to verbal
conflicts and use of vexing [insulting, cutting, offensive] words.
But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger

of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire
(Matthew 5:22).
See therefore that not only anger outwardly expressed is not sanctioned by Jesus but even
just anger that is thought. Because no one thinks evil without corrupting [disfiguring,
harming] the heart in which God should dwell; whoever thinks angrily against his brother
tears apart a sacred tie between him and the one he is angry witha tie which is difficult
to recover, because the devil [demon?] of anger, once it has penetrated the heart,
fabricates numerous arguments in your favor unto stopping you from reconciliation. In
the Epistle to the Ephesians, the holy apostle Paul gives a series of counsels to the
inhabitants of the city of Ephesus and in a special way lays stress upon the sin of anger.
The quotation at the beginning of our writing is from this epistle. Knowing that man gets
angry for many reasons and that this anger has the tendency to remain in the heart of man
and to transform it into hatred or at least to dig a gulf between us also caused by anger,
the Apostle counsels us to not let the sun go down upon our anger. In this way, the
purpose of anger which has the tendency to hurt and be transformed into a permanent
[abiding?] sin, is swept away and no longer constitutes a capitol [principle] sin.
I am interested in the sin of anger as a daily sin which we commit against those who are
close to us, against our family, friends, colleagues, and anonymous strangers who we by
chance cross paths with on the street. Anger in a moment, expressed through fiery words
against our wife or husband, wounds a tender [sensitive] spot between these two who are
married. In the mystery of marriagem, the Bridegroom is the symbol of Jesus, and the
Bride is the Church. The holy apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesiansthe Epistle
that is read at the crowning service [i.e. marriage ceremony]in this sense speaks about
the family, as a family church, in which the bridegroom loves the bride with the love with
which Jesus loves the Church, and the bride loves the bridegroom with the love which the
Church loves Christ.
If the husband and wife would ponder in the course of their married life on their being
wedded as the relationship between Christ and Church, the sun would never set upon
their wrath, they would never be separated and the children of families would no longer
be delivered over the state or private institutions, like some worn-out objects which these
two, separated through the sin of anger, which was not extinguished at the setting of the
sun, no longer have need. The love of their family became a void [lapsed, decaying]
word, which no longer matters before the demon who took complete mastery. A word
said in anger wounds just as seriously as a physical blow. If he who wounds does not
repair [rectify, put aright] the spiritual damage, little by little, a gulf [abyss] is dug
between the two, a deadly coldness kills the sentiment of love and of respect fitting
between husband and wife; time deepens and enlarges the gulf and, later, it is very
difficult for them to be able to throw a bridge across itonly with great effort and
suffering.
I have seen families who divorced after many years, who had had a fairly good family
life together, causing pain for their children who, perhaps, were already married ----- [la
rindul lor], and I have also seen happy families which divorced after a short time, all

caused by anger over time, leaving small children to grow up in frustration and
confusion, not understanding who is father and who is mother, and later, based on the
example of their parents, no longer consider marriage as an eternal bond, like that
between Christ and the Church.
I have seen brothers who, in Romania, loved each other and, arriving in America, under
the pressures of being in a foreign land, in the difficulties of adapting, were separated,
remaining enemies until death, because their anger burst out furiously [fiercly] into
strong words and because they let the sun go down upon their anger.
An Arabic proverb says that when you get upset, to count to ten, and if you get angry, to
count to one hundred. I do not know how effective this solution is, because it has no
mystical element in it, but appeals only to the reason for tempering the outward
expression of anger. I counsel my penitents that before they express their anger, be it in
speech or gestures, but it only mentally, to utter three or [to?] five times, Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. And even if, under the oppression of
anger, they say the prayer quickly without attention, then to concentrate with humility
upon the word sinner, and their anger will abate. Many of them have succeeded to
make both their life and family relationships, and relations with other people, and even
just with themselves, change very much to the better.
All the conflicts in the world have their origin in unabated anger. One is angry and
wounds the other, who then responds more violently and strongly. This chain that is
begun cannot be stopped except through the appeal to prayerto genuine prayer.
Change the conditions of this equation and put it, instead of the individual, between
groups of people, and you will realize the immense dimension of disaster provoked by
anger.
In this time of the Nativity of the Savior and His Baptism for His going out to preach(?),
try to put a firm opposition [obstacle] before the demon of anger. Put a guard on your
mouth and change the evil thoughts under the impulse of anger and your interior life will
be transformed. The blessing of the Lord will work in your heart, your tongue will no
longer be so sharp and the Jesus Prayer uttered at the necessary times will make you to
understand that you are sinners, thus stopping you from exteriorizing anger or from
keeping it in your mind and heart.
The Name of Jesus is sweet to utter. It casts out the demons and brings the angels back
into the heart, into the mind, and you will bear yourself in meekness before others.