Bishop Robert Baron on Punishment and Gift

I occasionally catch up on Bishop Robert Baron's Word on Fire videos, my nearest attempt to keeping up with popular culture. His commentaries generally start with a current event and connect it with other current events, philosophical thinkers, ecclesial teaching, etc., so I generally find them interesting.

This particular video was fascinating to me. It explores the connection of American comedian Stephen Colbert to J.R.R. Tolkien and John Henry Cardinal Newman.

The historical connection of providence is interesting, but in particular the Tolkien quote that prompted his reflection struck me.

 "Are not all of God's punishments also gifts?"

I noticed this partly because of my own experience and partly because of my Old Testament Narratives course, in which a major focus is the Babylonian Exile and post-exilic period in which the Jewish people had to reexamine their past and relationship to God in light of a traumatic experience.

From the very beginning of human experience when man sinned, God gave punishments not for despair but for hope. Work could be man's burden but also a source of his dignity; childbearing would be painful but also how God himself would enter the world in the most intimate way; the relationships of men and women would be plagued by misunderstanding and strife, but a constant reminder that their search for fulfillment is ultimately a search for God and not each other.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me if you seek me with all your heart.         Jeremiah 29:11-13

God has allowed trials and suffering in my life. Often I do not want to reflect on it and speak to God about my experience; often I just want to cry out for relief from pain. 

And how do I see my suffering? Is it a poison or a medicine? 

Jesus entered into the world of suffering and pain not as a teacher but as a priest and victim to make us an offering to God (cf. Friday vespers responsory). He sanctified suffering beyond what God decreed in the Protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15) so that it is no longer simply a spur to rouse us from complacency and reveal our need for God but actually a way to encounter him in our brokenness. 

Nowhere is this more explicit than the message of Divine Mercy. 

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Luke 5:32).

The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy (Divine Mercy in My Soul, 723).

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The icon of this Mercy is Blood and Water flowing from the pierced side of Christ, the grace he pours out in Sacraments to fill suffering sinners beginning at the points of greatest brokenness and pain in our life. 

This means opening the wounds, allowing the dead tissue to be removed and the salve to be applied, which is scary! It demands deep trust, but there is only One who heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:3).