Answers of the Great Masters of the Spiritual Life to the Questions of Their Disciples.

Disciple: I entreat you, father, teach me how love tames anger.

Master: Love is merciful and wishes to do good to one's neighbor, to be long suffering in this regard. By these means, then, love tames the anger of him who has got hold of it. 

Disciple: And what is long suffering?

Master: Perseverance in adversity, endurance of evils, to overcome long temptations, not to let your anger go out of control, not to speak a word of folly, not to suspect or to think anything that does not become a God-fearing man.

Disciple: And what is the reward of such a man?

Master: Scriptures say: "A long suffering man shall bear for a time, and, afterwards, joy shall be restored to him. He will hide his words for a time, and the lips of many shall declare his understanding."

Disciple: And what else are the marks of long suffering?

Master: To blame oneself as the cause of temptation.

Disciple: What does that mean?

Master: Many of the things that befall us is for our training, either to do away with past sins or to correct present neglect or to check future sinful deeds. He, then, who reckons that temptation has come upon him for one of these reasons is not vexed at its attack, especially as he is conscious of his sins. 

St. Maximus the Confessor, The Ascetical Life

(05-01-02)