WHAT MEEKNESS MEANS

“Meekness”: the Greek text uses here the word “praütes”, the same word that appears in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5). And in the Book of Numbers, the fourth Book of Moses, we find the affirmation that Moses was the meekest man in the world (cf. Num 12:3) and in this sense he was a prefiguration of Christ, of Jesus, who said of himself: “I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:29). So this word “meek”, or “gentle”, is also a Christological word and once again implies imitating Christ in this manner. For in Baptism we are configured to Christ so we must configure ourselves to Christ, we must discover this spirit of being meek, without violence, of convincing with love and kindness.

--Benedict XVI, Address to Seminarians of Rome, 2011