Artist: Pieter van der Heyden
(Ira) from The Seven Deadly Sins, After Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
“Faces swell in anger, they grow dark with the blood of veins.”
Wrath (Latin, ira) can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. In its purest form, wrath presents with injury, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of wrath can manifest in different ways, including impatience, hateful misanthropy, revenge, and self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide.
"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing."
—Will Rogers
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it's directed against an innocent person, when it's unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment. "If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin." (CCC 2302) Hatred is the sin of desiring that someone else may suffer misfortune or evil, and is a mortal sin when one desires grave harm. (CCC 2302-03)
People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been offended, when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event, when they are certain someone else is responsible, and when they feel they can still influence the situation or cope with it.
Dante described vengeance as "love of justice perverted to revenge and spite".
In accordance with Henry Edward, angry people are "slaves to themselves".
