Putting On the Virtue of Gentleness
December 20, 2022

Today especially, witness to Jesus’ gentleness and his proclamation of a kingdom of peace play a very prominent part in the Church’s preaching of the good news. This is intimately linked with the promotion of justice and peace and education toward both. Centesimus Annus (encyclical written by Pope John Paul II in 1991 on the hundredth anniversary of Rerum novarum)¹ speaks eloquently on the theme: “I myself, on the occasion of the recent tragic war… repeated the cry: -`Never again war!’ No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war. …For this reason, another name for peace is development. Just as there is a collective responsibility for avoiding war, so too there is a collective responsibility for promoting development.”

¹Centesimus Annus, 52; cf. also, 14, 54.

Source: Fr. Robert P. Maloney, C.M. A Further Look at “Gentleness”

Let us pray

Lord, help us to practice gentleness which includes action on behalf of justice and peace-making.

Scripture

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Zechariah 7:9-10