Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [189]
Two motives, then, underlie the attitude of sulking. In the first place, pride: that is, an essential and seemingly self-evident claim to importance; a need felt for riding high on the consideration of others. Secondly, a certain type of concupiscence, which renders the subject particularly susceptible to the charms of velvety cushions, figuratively speaking; of being softly treated, and spoiled. Such a person is, first of all, soft towards himself. In a general sense, he lets himself go, allured by the mirage of a life in which there are no harsh winds at all but only softly whispering breezes. He is, in fact, much too egocentric to be capable of the true happiness of being loved.
True love would require on his part the capacity of loving others, which implies a readiness for heroic self-surrender. An uncharitable treatment does not wound him by reason of its intrinsic ugliness and the virulent malice it contains. It irks him because it inflicts upon him an unpleasant experience of roughness and harshness, and troubles the tepid atmosphere in which he feels comfortable. To sum up, his softness does not imply in him, as it would in a hard and irascible character, a great wealth of love, but merely a feebler and less spirited nature. Softness in this sense is anything but a value.
The softness in meekness is penetrated by active goodness
The softness inherent in meekness is of a vastly different type. An abyss yawns between both also with respect to their quality. Meekness is penetrated by a sublime flavor of active goodness. It is the transfigured softness proper to supernatural love, which, St. Paul the Apostle says, “Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). It presupposes true freedom—freedom from all spasms of egocentrism.
In him who has attained to true meekness, there no longer remains any field of sensitivity to his treatment or appraisal by others except one: a heart warmed and made happy by the enlivening ray of pure love. Wounded by the dart of malice and hostility, blood flows from his wounded heart, yet at the same time he is neither embittered, irritated, nor sick with pettish resentment. Vituperations and insults, slights and injuries, acts of hatred or of contempt—they all no longer affect him with their specific venom, by tearing at his pride or grating on his sense of self-importance, but solely and exclusively in their quality as antitheses to love. The meek Christian is anything but insensible. He by no means views an offense inflicted upon him in a spirit of unimpassioned neutrality. By reason of the uncharitableness it represents, it will on the contrary bore into his heart—without, however, any poisoning or narrowing effect.
Meekness is compatible with ardent zeal and intrepid strength
Hence, the softness of meekness is consistent with ardent zeal and intrepid strength. St. Stephen, whom the Acts of the Apostles (6:8) call plenus gratia et fortitudine (“full of grace and fortitude”), is at the same time a shining example of true meekness. The brief account we read there of his conduct during his stoning reveals to us clearly his sublime meekness. No trace is seen here of a fighting hero’s posture; none of the stubborn resistance of a purely natural virility; nothing of hardness or bitterness of any kind. In his victorious love of God, as also in his mild and forgiving love towards his murderers, he offers his heart, clad in the soft garments of charity, to their implacable hatred.
Jesus is the model of meekness
But it is in Jesus our Lord that we discern holy meekness at its purest. He lets Judas kiss Him; suffers Himself to be wounded by the touch of His treacherous apostle: “Friend, whereto art thou come?” (Matt. 26:50). The dolorous words, “You are clean, but not all” (John 13:10); His exposure of His most holy heart to the wrath