MANSUETUDINE. — Virtue that moderates anger, restraining it within the limits of what is reasonable, in order to avoid the blinding impetus of passion. Anger, which in itself may be either just or unjust, finds in m. (a potential part of temperance) that proper mean which prevents its irrational excess and directs it toward those objects against which it is reasonable for it to be directed.
S. Tommaso connects m., as an evangelical beatitude of the supernatural order, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, highlighting the perfection, attained in the supernatural order, of the natural virtue: “There is a virtue that restrains the irruption of the passions of the irascible appetite, so that man does not surrender himself to them beyond what is reasonable; the gift (of the Holy Spirit) acts more perfectly, so that man is made tranquil in the face of those passions according to the divine will; hence the beatitude: ‘Blessed are the meek.’ From this ascetical-supernatural perspective, m. is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23), and makes the Christian more closely resemble Jesus, ‘meek of heart’ (Mt. 11:29).