Meekness presupposes love; and with it an insight into the beauty of the human soul—the preciousness of the spiritual person as an image of God and a vessel of grace. It flows from our recognition of the beauty of love, goodness, and harmony, and of the hideousness of enmity, strife, and disharmony.

Still more, true meekness presupposes a mind conscious of the face of Christ, of His holy goodness and mildness. It presupposes a soul touched by His love, which softens all hardened fibers and dissolves all crampedness. It implies a taste of that peace whose concept we have tried to convey in the previous chapter.

Beyond the knowledge of these things, it requires a full response thereto. What constitutes the specific domain of meekness is the manifestation of love: the way in which love—the personified intentio benevolentiae as it were, condensing in it the whole personality of the subject—stretches out to reach the beloved person. In other words, meekness represents a certain consequence of benevolent, transfigured, holy love: that is, the way in which we spiritually embrace the beloved person.

The attitude of love implies, as we know, two basic elements: the intention of union (intentio unionis) and the intention of well-wishing (intentio benevolentiae). In addition to these, there are many other elements to be found in love: the tone of inner suavity, the elements of fervor and audacity, and the act of a heroic self-abandonment.

The aspect of which meekness embodies a specific expression is that of a serene mellowness inherent in the perfect attitude of love: the softening quality of love by virtue of which it becomes, as it were, a tangible substance, which might be described as fluid goodness. Meekness is comparable to a seal which this element of love impresses on our whole essence, thus conferring a specific stamp upon all forms of our communication and intercourse with other persons.

Our inward attention to the fellow person (the way we think of him, judge him, appraise him inwardly), our tone of voice when speaking to him, our choice of words, our rhythm of speech—all this as well as all other details of our behavior towards him will, if we possess true meekness, be informed by that particular element of love.

Accordingly, all kinds of enmity, hatred and irritation—in view of the trait of venomousness peculiar to them—are evidently antithetic to meekness.

Coarseness, roughness, and violence are explicit antitheses of meekness

However, what constitutes a more specific antithesis to true meekness, its polar opposite as it were, are the qualities of roughness, coarseness, hardness, and violence. These are eminently opposed, not only to love as such, as are all modes of enmity, but to that particular quality of love in which meekness is rooted. The irascible, brutal, violent kind of person, bent on overriding another’s will, on beating him into submission, is he who forms the really specific contrast to the man endowed with the virtue of meekness.