“They don’t see me ever angry or irritated…, with the same affability, love and affection I speak to the poor as to the rich, to boys and to the great, to the uncouth as to the wise”
(Self-portrait of the Apostolic Missionary, in AEC pp. 532-533).
BRINGER OF GOOD NEWS
It is important for everyone to evaluate periodically one’s own way of behavior and actions, carrying then before the mirror of other eyes which could be those of a superior or even those of an expert or a friend. The paragraph quoted from Fr. Claret corresponds to a moment of self evaluation in his epoch as preacher of Good News through the villages of Catalonia. It forms part of a text which he sent to his friend and old class mate, the philosopher Jaime Balmes who wanted to interiorize himself from this experience. Concretely, the quoted point is the seventh of the eight in which he synthesized his response to the friend, saying how his vocation was understood and he intended to live his own vocation. Then to describe his commitment to the Lord who had elected and sent him, he needed to propose in short traits his conduct with the neighbor, with the people he directed. He inspired himself in Jesus, first Missionary, meek and humble of heart(Mt. 11:29).
Years later, from his personal experience, the same Claret would write that “with humility one pleases God and reaches all goods and with meekness one pleases people and brings them to a good path” (The Well-Instructed Seminarian). From there the place which the announcer of Gospel should concede to this virtue of meekness: it moderates the vehemence which can accompany a certain zeal originated more in a choleric temperament than in genuine Christian and apostolic charity.
From there results that the face of meekness be the affability, love and the affection with which we approach all, the rich and the poor, the small and the great, the ignorant or the wise. The meek will inherit the earth, that is, the heart of people (cf. Mt. 5:5).
You had indeed encounters with persons, perhaps of good will in their service but not always with the necessary control of their own impulses. What remembrance and what fruit did remain in those encounters? Have they instructed you, by contrast, for your own way of relating with the others?