CHRISTIAN SUFFERING AND THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES
The suffering of the righteous also has a restorative function. God disciplines the righteous individual, taking preventative and corrective measures in order to keep the heart of the righteous from turning away from him. Proverbs 3:11-12 says: "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father the son he delights in".
Apart from an individual's suffering because of his or her belonging to a nation under God's judgment or on account of the sins of a previous generation, the Old Testament (with some exceptions) and the New Testament portray God as dealing with each human being on the principle of retributive justice. Retributive justice has to do with giving proportionately to offender the measure of the punishment they deserve.
In the Old Testament and the New Testament, suffering more frequently is causally linked to the sins of the descendants of the first man and woman. God established a moral order in creation, with the result that retributive justice is meted out in life experience. In this worldview, the appearance of suffering in human experience is not random, but has its causal antecedents in an individual's or community's moral decisions. Retributive justice is sometimes conceived as the working out of a moral law forthcoming in creation, as in the Book of Proverbs. At other times, it is the direct judgment of God manifesting itself through such things as drought, disease, or foreign invasion.
The Book of Job poses this question of suffering. Job’s friends think suffering is simply retribution for wrong-doing, a just punishment for sin. The Old Testament strongly supports that line of thinking: the existence of moral evil (sin) justifies the existence of suffering as punishment. To sin is to break the divine Law, it is to transgress against the divine Law-giver, God; it is an objective necessity that a just Law-giver should punish evil and reward good.
Job challenges the principle that all suffering is the result of sin. God acknowledges that Job is innocent in the matter, but the suffering of the innocent remains a mystery which God does not reveal. While some suffering is punishment for sin, not all suffering is: it can be a test of righteousness. This all points to the suffering (Passion) of Christ in the New Testament. Suffering as punishment (such as Israel endured when it strayed from her covenant with God) had an educational value as well. Punishment repays evil, but it also provides an opportunity to rebuild the good that was missing. Punishment is ordered towards penalty, but also conversion, mercy, and rehabilitation.
There is a “Gospel of Suffering” written by the witnesses of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Mary, His Mother, is the foremost witness, because she was present at the side of Christ throughout His life, sharing in His suffering from Simeon’s prophecy through to the Crucifixion. Christ told His disciples to bear hardships, carry their own crosses, and deny themselves, all of which are a sharing in His suffering, and which join His disciples to Him. The promise of suffering (often in the form of persecution for Christ) requires courage and fortitude, placing hope in Christ and His victory over the world through His suffering. The fact that Christ retains the wounds of the crucifixion even on His resurrected body is a testimony to suffering being more that an encounter with evil.
To Be Continued…
Mary, Cause of Our Joy, Pray for us!!!
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