The Cross and the Beatitudes

by Fulton J. Sheen

Meekness is not cowardice; meekness is not an easy-going temperament, sluggish and hard to arouse; meekness is not a spineless passivity which allows everyone to walk over us. No! Meekness is self-possession. That is why the reward of meekness is possession. A weak man can never be meek, because he is never self-possessed; meekness is the virtue that controls the combative, violent, and pugnacious powers of our nature, and is therefore the best and noblest road to self-realization. The meek man is not a man who refuses to fight, nor is he a man who will never become angry. A meek man is someone who will never do one thing: he will never fight when his conceit is attacked, but only when a principle is at stake. And there is the keynote to the difference of the anger of the violent man and the anger of the meek man.