William Hatherell, 1925
Translation of the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
Dearly beloved, every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration. For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creatures. You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger. For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God. Wherefore casting away all uncleanness, and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to St. John
At that time Jesus said to His disciples: I go to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me: Whither goest thou? But because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart. But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he is come, he will convince the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment. Of sin: because they believed not in me. And of justice: because I go to the Father; and you shall see me no longer. And of judgment: because the prince of this world is already judged. I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall show you. He shall glorify me; because he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you.
The Saving Words of the Gospel
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
He has begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creatures, which perhaps in the first glance are not readily intelligible, but what we gather from this passage of St. James – which is now becoming one of my favorite books of the Bible – James is showing us that the One Who is Absolute, the One Who is Unmovable, the One Who Is, Was, and Always Will Be, comes into our lives and elevates us, grafts us onto Himself, allowing us to participate in His nature, in His life. And what we gather from this, he says, the beginning of creatures, in other words, it’s the start of a project. His initiative. We’re the recipients of the graces. And nonetheless, how we cooperate with those graces, that’s something each one of us is deciding each day.
And so, if you listen to these words – and I recommend you just take this passage and meditate on it at some point – you see this notion of receptivity; that we’ve received, we listen. We all know what it is what it’s like to speak to somebody, and as you’re speaking, you know the person isn’t listening to you anymore because they’re just waiting for you to stop making noise so they can say what they’re thinking about right now. We all know what that’s like, and he’s telling us we have to learn to listen to Him; to listen to Him.
And the Church tells us that Our Lord speaks to us through different ways; through Revelation, of scripture, through tradition, through liturgy, through our consciences. His providential plan is being revealed, and if we’re enclosed in ourselves, well, we’re going to miss out on a lot.
Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above. He speaks of different gifts, but ultimately, James speaks of Jesus Christ as the gift of the Father to us. He is the ultimate gift that we receive. And when He comes into our lives, He brings with Him the Father, and the Son [sic, Spirit], because where one of them is, the others are close by. He brings us the faith. He brings us this divine indwelling. He brings us membership in the Mystical Body of the Church. He brings with… one of the gifts is opening up to us the Gates of Heaven. One of the gifts He brings us is configuration of our heart and our mind with His because we’re grafted like dry dead twigs onto this living vine and all of a sudden the sap from the living vine is now giving new life to these withered twigs that have been made anew through Baptism and through confession. And then, He starts to speak about those things that endanger the gift, that endanger this life in God. He speaks of anger, he speaks of disordered passions, and then he speaks of a propensity that we have to malice.
Now, anger is not necessarily a vice. There is a capital sin called wrath, but not all anger is sinful. And that’s why we don’t have, you know, sloth is sinful, gluttonous is sinful, and there’s a corresponding virtue that corrects those. But there isn’t a corresponding virtue, so to say, to anger, because anger itself is not necessarily sinful. St. John Chrysostom says that if we’re not angry about the right things, we’re sinful. And so, what is anger?
Anger is a visceral response to something. And for it to be virtuous anger, it has to be a just cause and has to be moderated by reason. And so, sinful anger, when it becomes wrath, is not for a just cause or/and it’s disproportionate. If you think of canonical crimes that somebody might commit, and then the Church’s punishment, the punishment is always ordered towards correction of the person. It’s not a tit-for-tat; it’s ordered towards a correction for the good of the soul. We can quite easily fall into the sin of Eden, an expression of that sin of Eden, you will be like gods by appropriating to ourselves vengeance; appropriating to ourselves wrath when vengeance is the Lord’s.
And then he counsels us, St. James, in this passage, to be open in a certain way, to be open to these gifts of God through what means? Meekness. Now we can easily misunderstand meekness. We think that a meek person might be like a doormat, somebody who’s passive, somebody who doesn’t have strong character, and that’s to really misunderstand what it is to be meek. The word πραυτης (prautes) in Greek, wherein Our Lord says, Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the kingdom. Well, this πραυτης is something that is perpetually vigilant. The person who is πραυτης, the person who is meek, is awake. He’s receptive. We are not talking “woke”. He’s awake. In other words, he’s paying attention. Paying attention to what’s going on, what Our Lord is doing. And so, there’s a habitual disposition of openness. And this openness to God’s will. So, this openness, this attitude of habitual openness to whatever it is Our Lord is asking, then allows the person to be a better cooperator with the Holy Spirit, paying back good for good and even good for evil.
Christ says, when He describes Himself and He gives us Himself as a model. He says, Learn from me, I’m meek and humble of heart. Meek, this πραυτης. And so, He doesn’t say “Learn from me because I’m omnipotent, I’m omniscient, I’m anything else except for these two qualities: meekness and humility.” And so, this meekness that Our Lord is speaking of is not craven. It’s not fearful. It’s not passive. It’s not cowering. It’s not cowardly. It’s at odds with all of those things. When Christ tells us to bend our neck under His yoke and learn from Him, to be like Him, this requires actually a lot of courage, a lot generosity. The yoke of obedience and fidelity has a cost for each one of us. Our Lord is asking us to share His burden. And so, meekness and cowardness are mutually exclusive.
The meekness that Our Lord reveals in His Sacred Humanity knows how to take the tortures, the derision, all and every aspect of the Passion, and turn it to something salvific. Notice how He doesn’t execute justice in the moment of His Passion. In each moment of His Passion, He’s loving His torturers. He’s offering the pain and the sorrow and the grief up to the Father. He’s making something beautiful out of a horrible situation.
And so, the meek person knows how to do this because he’s not immersed in himself. He’s immersed in the will of the Father. And that’s really the lesson for us. Christ invites us to imitate Him, learn from Me, I’m meek and humble, so that we can join Him and be like Him. As distant as each one of us is from our model, we’re not excused from the task. And so, this Christian meekness that we’re invited to is not resignation, it’s not constraint, it’s actually a certain freedom, a freedom in Christ to be above situations, to not be dictated to by externals, because the meek person has found his place in the Heart of Christ and has no time or interest for anything less.
The world, the flesh, the devil can try and sell their wares, but the meek person who is eminently constructive in each situation is not interested. The meek are made heirs of the Kingdom, so says the Beatitude, because of this interior disposition of receptivity for every perfect gift of God, as James says. They expect great things from God and receive them because of their trust. They expect great things of God, and because they do, they’re awake to them when they come in very subtle ways, in things that perhaps for somebody else might be hidden and lost to them. In conforming themselves to Christ in a Sacred Humanity, they form themselves, and they allow themselves to be formed as adopted children. And as children, as adopted brothers of Christ, they inherit the earth.
And so, the Kingdom of Heaven is truly theirs. They’re at home there and not very much at home in this world, and that’s fine. James is a man who understood this meekness and lived in his own flesh when he gave his life for Christ as Christ gave His life. And so, he truly did learn from Him to be meek and humble, and in the ultimate gift, he cooperated with the grace of martyrdom.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger