Gospel: Mathew 5: 1-12

 

”Blessed are the gentle, they shall inherit the earth”. The third beatitude is about gentleness. This is a quality that is not  popular today. For many it has a negative connotation and is taken for weakness or a kind of imperturbability that knows how to calculatingly control one’s emotions. What does the word “gentle” mean in the Bible? In the Old Testament the gentle are remembered as those who enjoy great peace, are happy, blessed, and loved by God. They are also contrasted with evildoers, the ungodly. 

 

In the NT, the first time we meet the word is in Mt 11:29: “Learn from me because I am gentle and humble of heart”. Paul also says that gentleness is an identifying quality of the Christian, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers and consists in being meek, moderate, slow to punish, kind and patient towards others. Gentleness is an attitude that is part of the Christian and a sign of the new man in Christ.

 

The gentle person, according to the beatitudes, is one who, in spite of the fervor of his/her feelings, remains docile and calm, not possessive, interiorly free, always extremely respectful of the mystery of freedom, imitating God in this respect who does everything with respect for the person, and urges the person to obedience without ever using violence. Gentleness is opposed to all forms of material or moral arrogance, it gains the victory of peace over war, of dialogue over imposition.

 

Thus gentleness spoken of in the beatitudes is none other than that aspect of humility that manifests itself in practical affability in one’s dealings with the other. Such gentleness finds its image and its perfect model in the person of Jesus, gentle and humble of heart. Truly, such gentleness seems to us like a form of charity, patient and delicately attentive towards others.