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February 22

Strong and Gentle

To be marked by love does not mean one is weak. Rather, it means one’s strength is used, not to exploit, harm, or dominate, but to build up, nurture, and care.

Because there is such stress in the biblical story on love and humility, one can easily misread this to mean Christians are to be gullible, exploitable, and weak. This is a serious misreading of Scripture.

Moses was called the meekest or humblest man in all the earth. But he was the great prophet-leader of Israel, used by Yahweh to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity and oppression. Thus one can be strong and gentle at the same time.

St. Ambrose makes this point more generally. He writes that the “man who is both severe and gentle is blessed: his severity, by striking terror maintains discipline; his gentleness does not crush innocence.”53

While we may want to word this somewhat differently, the point is clear: strength and love can go together. In fact, love is a particular form of strength. It is strength expressing itself in caring ways.

And to put all of this differently, there is nothing weak about love and humility. To love is to be strong and to be humble is simply to recognize that the sources of a strong love lie in the goodness of God in our lives.

Thought

To be strong without love can lead to domination. To be strong in love is true freedom.