A Beautiful Story of Imperfection

September 1, 2024   A Beautiful Story of Imperfection A Reflection from Fr. Bill Muller, S.J. Vice President for Mission and Identity   Are you familiar with the Japanese kintsugi? When a bowl or some other pottery is broken, it is mended with a gold or some other precious metal lacquer to highlight where the brokenness was -- and to make the bowl even more beautiful.     I’m told that the Navajo include a deliberate imperfection in woven rugs and tapestries to remind us that we are not perfect and that even so, the rug is useful, and the tapestry tells a beautiful story.   When Pope Francis was interviewed after he was elected Pope, he was asked to introduce himself. “I am a sinner; loved by God.”   We break sometimes, if not often; not one of us is perfect; we are all sinners.    It is comforting to believe that when something happens that breaks us or highlights our imperfections or makes obvious our sin (at least to ourselves) that God’s grace still abounds. As deep and as awful as our pain may be, deeper yet is Jesus’ embrace of us from his cross. He knows brokenness.       There are times when it is difficult to believe and so to find any comfort. Sometimes the gold lacquer doesn’t hold; sometimes the threads unravel; sometimes God doesn’t get through to our pain.   St. Ignatius, on his way from his former life and desirous of serving God, was so beset with scruples, confessing his past sins over and over, that he considered suicide twice, one time by throwing himself into a deep pit and another time by trying to starve himself to death. Today we would say he was suffering a mental health crisis. He begged God to release him of his scruples which caused him so much suffering. He was broken; the threads of his life were unraveling.     At his lowest point he understood that his life was not in his own hands and he had what we might call an “Aha!” moment. His mind and spirit cleared and he decided never to confess anything he had already confessed. From that day forward he never suffered from scruples again.   I think Ignatius’ ability to help people free themselves from attachments that kept them from getting closer to God came in part from his own experiences of great suffering. He, too, is a man of sorrows. Like the kintsugi, God pieced Ignatius together so he could become a master of understanding the human spirit and to be, as he would say, a helper of souls.     The patron for mental health illness in the Catholic Church is St. Dymphna -- an interesting story if you look her up -- but I think we should add St. Ignatius as our own patron for mental health, our own example of God’s loving the broken into something more useful and more precious.   Some Dates in September to Note   National Suicide Prevention Month Hispanic Heritage Month September 15 - October 15 1 - World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation 2 - Labor Day 3 - Feast of St. Gregory the Great Treaty of Paris ending American Revolution 1783 5 - Mother Teresa of Calcutta Died 1997 8 - Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary National Grandparents Day 9 - Feast of St. Peter Claver, SJ 10 - World Suicide Prevention Day 14 - Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross Handel’s Messiah completed 1741 15 - Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows 17 - Feast of St. Robert Bellarmine, SJ 19 - New Zealand first to grant Women the Vote 1893 20 - Feast of St. Andrew Kim and Companions, Korean Martyrs 21 - Feast of St. Matthew, Evangelist International Day of Peace 26 - Birthday of TS Eliot 1888 First Televised Presidential Debate 1960   Pope Francis' September Prayer Intention, "For the Cry of the Earth":     popesprayerusa.net/popes-intentions/     EN ESPAÑOL Unsubscribe Brophy College Preparatory 4701 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85012