Stepping from anger to healing

My audio of this reflection is podcast at:http://gnm.org/DailyReflections/podcasts/
Good News ReflectionFriday of the First Week in Lent March 6, 2009
Today's Saint: Colettehttp://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/Colette.htm
Today's Readings:Ezekiel 18:21-28Ps 130:1-8Matthew 5:20-26http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030609.shtmlAudio: http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/09_03_06.mp3
Stepping from anger to healing
In today's Gospel passage, Jesus speaks to us about anger. He makes us aware of the increasing dangers of anger by referring to increasingly disastrous results in the angry person's soul. At the lowest level, anger in the heart results in "judgment," which in that day meant the Jewish local court where the easiest punishments were meted out.
Then, he describes how anger in the heart becomes anger that kills: To use abusive language toward others destroys their self-esteem. It belittles them. It kills their spirit. The abuser must now face a trial before the Sanhredin, which was the highest judicial body.
Finally, Jesus warns that holding someone in contempt is the worst of all forms of anger. To hate someone so much as to see no value in them is to condemn oneself to Gehenna. "Gehenna" was a name given to a nearby valley that was used as the center of a demonic cult in which children were killed by fire as a sacrifice to the gods. The Jews used the name to illustrate the concept of punishment by fire; today we call it "hell."
Abortion is such a sin, because it sees no value in the unborn child. However, even in this, God's forgiveness and healing is very nearby. The Sacrament of Confession re-opens the door to heaven, where we will someday be reunited in love with these children.
The rest of this scripture passage is God's remedy for the times we feel angry. In essence, Jesus says: Go and do whatever is necessary to be reconciled with the one who's made you angry. This, he points out, is even more important than worshiping God.
How genuine can our worship really be if anger has replaced love in our hearts? Since God is love, wor-
ship that's mixed with hateful anger is hollow and hypocritical, a slap on God's face, a stomp on the Eucharist.
Anger as an emotion is not evil. Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they're merely a temporary reflection of what's going on inside of us at the moment.
Anger that stays in us long enough to damage others is rooted in the emptiness of not feeling loved. Filling that void with anger deceptively feels better than continuing in the pain of the void.
Therefore, we are healed when we choose to fill the void with love. When we love ourselves, we are letting God love us, and once God's love fills our emptiness, there's no room left for anger.
Jesus got angry about sin. It's okay to feel justifiable anger. It's what we do with the feeling that matters. Do we allow God to use it for loving purposes or do we use it as a weapon that hurts others?
Today's step on the Lenten journey: What is triggering your anger? Look deeper than the obvious. Once you realize its true source (the fear or the void caused by feeling unloved), the next step is to choose to unite yourself to the love of Christ by forgiving all those who contributed to it. And don't forget to forgive yourself!
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