The Son of Man IX. Meek and Gentle

Irish Jesuit Province

The Son of Man IX. Meek and GentleAuthor(s): Hugh KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 79, No. 939 (Sep., 1951), pp. 397-402Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516420 .

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THE SON OF MAN?IX

MEEK AND GENTLE

By HUGH KELLY, S.J.

I HAVE spoken of some of the qualities which constitute the

strength of Christ, His intellectual power, His courage, His

capacity to deal firmly and unerringly with every situation, His

abiding, unshakable possession of self. These, and many others

akin to them, are found in Him in full measure; but if they are

not completed and balanced by another set of qualities, the true

expression of His character is lost. If we are to do justice to the

complex character, which the gospels present to us, we must main

tain the balance of different and contrasting virtues. In this paper I will speak of the qualities which bring Him close to the level of

ordinary humanity, of His simplicity, His meekness, His affability, His mercy. They are as integral a part of His character as the

qualities which raise Him above His fellows.

There was no deliberate effort made in that life to build up and

foster a deliberate idea of something mysterious; to surround Him

with an atmosphere appropriate to a prophet or religious teacher.

On the contrary, nine-tenths of His life was spent in conditions

which seemed to make it impossible for Him to advance any such

claims. Thirty years spent in a country village, and half of these

in a carpenter's workshop, surely these years could only produce the unshakable impression that He was entirely commonplace, and

exactly like the mass of His fellow-men. That same simplicity will

be seen in His public life. He will remain poor; He will not have

whereon to lay His head; He will depend for His food on the kindness of some women, who ministered to Him of their substance.

In all this He is a contrast with religious leaders and teachers in

general; and even with John the Baptist, so closely connected with

Him in blood and office. In every stage the career of John was

extraordinary. Christ thus combines greatness with simplicity of life. We find

the same contrast in His teaching. He was wise and deep in doctrine

and in mind; yet He was simple and winning in discourse. We do

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not often meet with teachers who say wise, profound things with a simplicity which brings them within the reach of ordinary, un

educated people, "The sower went out to sow his seed. And as

he sowed, some fell by the wayside. And it was trodden down

and the fowls of the air devoured it." The great parable, His first, is too well known to be quoted in full. But how vivid and clear

it is; yet how profound; what meanings, what lessons, it has for all

hearers. That was the outstanding quality of His discourses, which

attracted attention from the beginning, that union of profundity of

teaching with simplicity and sweetness. The spontaneous cry of

His hearers was that no man spoke like that. It is the tribute which

every reader of the Gospel feels moved to make.

He did not then preach an exclusive, esoteric doctrine, meant for

a small circle of initiated. He preached from the housetops; He

spoke the profoundest mysteries of God and the spiritual life in

the "market-place, in the village synagogue. He was not a religious

philosopher who taught an abstruse system to a few disciples, who

might be able to enter into His thought. When questioned by the

Sanh?drin about His doctrine, on the night of His arrest, He pointed to that character of His teaching. "I have spoken openly to the

world; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort; and in secret I have spoken nothing.

Why askest thou Me? Ask them who have heard what I have

spoken to them "

(John xviii, 21). In that spirit He will talk to the

Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob, with the blind man in the

temple, with the paralytic at the pool of Probatica. He taught a

truth that was vital for the whole world, and by His genius He

brought it down to the capacity of all to whom He spoke.

There is a scene in His public life, recorded by the three Synoptists, which helps us greatly to understand His simplicity of character.

On one occasion after He had spoken, the mothers, who had been

among His hearers, brought their children up to Him that He might

lay His hands on them and pray over them. The disciples began to drive them away, upbraiding them; reasonably enough they considered that He had more important matters to occupy His time

and attention. And yet He spared time for the children, and sharply

reprimanded the disciples; "

for He was much displeased, and saith

to them * suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them

not; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven * "

(Mark x, 14). We feel

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that we know Our Lord better for that scene, from the fact that He

was not too busy to have time for children, that He was drawn by their simplicity and candour.

Misereor super turbam?I have pity on the crowd. The words were drawn from Him by the patience and devotion of the thousands, who had followed Him into a desert place, on the east of the Lake

of Galilee, and who had remained with Him three days. They give us His general attitude towards the mass of ordinary people. His

dealings with the crowd afford a most precious instruction on His

character. He lived among ordinary, poor people most of His life, on terms of intimacy. At Nazareth, as the village carpenter, He

was regarded as one of the community. In His public life, while

He met people of all classes and rejected no class which sought the

Kingdom of God, still it may be said that the greater part of His time was spent among crowds. They flocked to Him; they crowded round

Him; they gave Him no time to Himself. As His reputation grew the enthusiasm of the crowd grew, so that the report that He was

about to enter a district was sufficient to have Him at once the centre

of a great multitude, who came to hear Him and to have their sick

and possessed healed by Him. Of its nature a crowd is importunate, rough and inconsiderate. Their presence constantly renewed would not leave Him time to eat or rest, and would involve a certain nervous

strain and fatigue. But in such trying conditions He is always true to Himself. He is always simple, approachable, kind, interested.

With every type He is patient, courteous, never in a hurry, at the

disposal of all who seek Him. He is never superior, or fastidious, or condescending. His attitude towards the people did not come

from any illusions, or shallow optimism or doctrinaire views on

politics. No one knew better than He the depths of evil which the human heart can contain. At the same time He never flatters the

crowd; He is no demagogue out of time. Neither does He fear the

crowd or court it. He will correct men and chide them and refuse to fall in with their foolish, worldly enthusiasms. For this crowd, enthusiastic, but thoughtless and improvident, two of His great

miracles are worked?the feeding of thousands with a few loaves and fishes. "And Jesus called together His disciples and said :

' I have

compassion on the multitude because they continued with Me three

days and have not what to eat. And I will not send them away

fasting lest they faint on the way.' "

There is there a considerateness

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for commonplace human needs which we might not have expected in one whose work was to preach about man's eternal destiny.

It is this pity for common, thoughtless humanity, which dis

tinguishes Christ so sharply from the "

strong man "

of history or

at least of modern politics, from the type so lauded in our day, which

has only strength and ruthlessness, which can break and crush the

wieak, but which lacks all sense of pity, and has no balm for hurt

souls and suffering humanity. It is significant that the one virtue

of His which He singles out for mention is not one of the "

strong "

virtues. "

Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart." These

words 'give the abiding impression which the gospels leave on us.

That meekness and gentleness did not come from timidity or in

difference; they came from pity and from love. They shine out in

all His dealings with those who were weak, suffering and in need.

When He went among the sick His action was full of gentleness. When His disciples are angry because they have been refused

admission into a town, and ask Him to call down fire from Heaven on it, He checks them with the words: "You know not of what

spirit you are." They had not yet learned His spirit of meekness and

gentleness. Fire of vengeance was not the kind of fire He had come to cast upon the earth.

But it is in His Passion that this meekness shines with most

compelling power. It is seen in all His words?in those addressed

to the Apostles who slept at their post, in those spoken to the traitor

who came in person to hand Him over to His enemies; in those

spoken to the servant who struck Him on the face in open court, in those spoken to Pilate and the women who lamented for Him; in those spoken from the cross. His meekness is inexhaustible; it is

the spirit of all His actions and sufferings. The image which the

Prophet had used so long before, to portray His demeanour in His

suffering, "as a lamb before his shearer", sums up His humble

acceptance of all that came to Him in the sacrifice of redemption. . That balance of contrasting qualities which is so remarkable in

Christ is particularly admirable in His attitude towards sinners. No

human soul had such a knowledge of sin, or such a horror of it, because no human soul was so far removed from it. He was holy in a unique way; He was holy with the uncreated holiness of the

Divinity. He was the only human being who could absolutely, and

on His own right, make the challenge to the world? " Which of you

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can convict Me of sin? "

And yet with that dazzling moral purity, with that infinite distance from the stain of sin, there went an extra

ordinary sympathy and love for sinners. He distinguished, as no one

else, the sinner from his sin. From the first He manifested this

attitude towards sinners. " Why doth your Master eat with publicans

and sinners? "

the Pharisees said to His disciples. Christ sought out

sinners; He accepted their invitations to go to their houses; He was

called the Friend of sinners. He proclaimed that it was for them

He had come. His most moving parables, the prodigal son, the lost

sheep, are framed to show what He thinks of them; His most gracious actions, the treatment of the woman taken in adultery, of Mary

Magdalen, and of the good thief, serve but to apply the parables if not to surpass them. In His litany of glorious titles, Son of David,

Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, King of the Jews, etc., there were

not many which gave Him more pleasure than that of Friend of

Sinners.

"He shall not contend or cry out; His voice shall not be heard

in the street. The bruised reed He shall not break; the smoking flax He shall not extinguish." The words of Isaias (chapter xlii)

quoted by St. Matthew (xii, 18) give us the portrait of the suffering, humble Messias and sum up the aspect of Christ we are considering here. This portrait of One Who was essentially meek and humble in

all the circumstances of life, in which these virtues could be practised, was very different from the portrait of the Messias which was in

possession in the minds of Christ's contemporaries, a portrait which

the national pride, the love of riches and of power, had inspired, a Messias who was to be a great king and conqueror, who would

drive out the Romans, and would found a kingdom more splendid and wider than that of Solomon. It was the achievement of Jesus

that, by His teaching and example, He replaced this false worldly Messias with that of the true one, the man of sorrows, the humble servant of God, the Son of God, made man. This substitution meant

nothing less than a reversal of the moral values He found in

possession of the soul of the Jews; and that reversal He inaugurated when He formulated the Beatitudes and achieved by His Passion and Resurrection.

Perhaps it is to the Beatitudes that we are to go for the fullest

portrait of Christ, of the Messias that He was to proclaim and that

He was in truth and reality. It is a portrait of One Who is poor

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in spirit, detached from all love of material things, of One Who is

meek, Who does not contend or resent attack or insult, of One Who

thirsts only for holiness and the fulfilment of God's will, of One

Who mourns for the blindness and sins of men, of One Who was

a peacemaker because He sought to remove the causes of strife

between man and God, of One Who suffered persecution because

He opposed the wicked will of man and showed him that the will

of God has the first and most incontestable claim upon his loyalty and service. In proclaiming the Beatitudes He proclaimed His own

virtues, those virtues which are at once the true disposition of heart

for Christianity and its unmistakable result.

IF ANY MAN THIRST

" If any man thirst . . .** Lord, Thou knowest well

That we all thirst; and those who singing ride

The wave's crest, and those whom the brutal swell

Leaves on the shore, torn sea-weed, sorrow dried.

Nay, more. It is not Sorrow bears within

Herself this emptiness, that thirsty grieves, But rather Joy, the full red rose, that in

The windless warmth of June spills all her leaves.

That she is bound to God by so-strong bands, Beautiful Anima?be glad, be glad;

Who, joy-crowned, hides her face within her hands, Thinks of her heavenly Lover, and is sad.

Joan Sweetman

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The Son of Man IX. Meek and Gentle