The Gospel in Words: 'Chasten'

"The Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. (Mosiah 23:21)" Chasten means to inflict disciplinary or corrective punishment on; to visit with affliction for the purpose of moral improvement; to correct, discipline, chastise (usually of Divine chastisement) (Oxford English Dictionary).Chasten comes from the root which means punish to improve, literally to make pure. In The Origins of English Words, we learn that chasten means pure; cut free from fault; empty; to cut away from. Chaste, chastity, Catherine, quash and catharsis come from the same root. Similarly, anciently a castle (same root) had a protective moat and ground cut clear, for the mile walk before the royal residence. Someone approaching this cut-away clearing would dismount and come afoot to prevent surprise (Origins). This is symbolic of the cleansing we must go through in order to approach God.Paul teaches that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth (Hebrews 12:6). Even though, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised (trained, disciplined) thereby (Hebrews 12:11). It is this chastening that is indispensable in helping us to put off the natural man and become a saint, if among other things, we are willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon us (Mosiah 3:19). The Lord chastens his people both collectively and individually. In Doctrine & Covenants 101, the Lord speaks to the Prophet Joseph Smith concerning your brethren who have been afflicted, and persecuted … I, the Lord, have suffered the affliction to come upon them. … Therefore, they must be chastened and tried even as Abraham. … For all those who will not endure chastening, but deny me, cannot be sanctified (D&C 101:1-5). Chastening is how the Lord brings us from pride back to humility and understanding our dependence upon him. We may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people … then is the time that they do harden their hearts and do forget the Lord their God … and Thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions … they will not remember him (Helaman 12:2-3). All this, however, is done with the kindest regard of a Father/surgeon cutting away from us the diseased parts of our being that prevent us from returning to him. T.S. Eliot wrote: The wounded surgeon plies the steelThat questions the distempered part;Beneath the bleeding hands we feelThe sharp compassion of the healers artResolving the enigma of the fever chart.