April 15/Good Friday
I am forgotten like the unremembered dead; I am like a dish that is broken. ~ Ps 31.12-13
I’ve always been enchanted by mosaics. The process of taking irregular and broken pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic and out of them creating a pattern, a portrait, or a picture seems almost miraculous to me. The interplay between the coherence of the image and the fragmentation of its composition is fascinating: out of such brokenness comes a thing of beauty. The same is true for us, but we are loath to accept it; for the most part, we aren’t even willing to acknowledge the many ways in which our lives are broken. Certainly today’s culture, aided and abetted by the forces of social media, strong-arms us to put up a good front. We go out into the world pretending that everything is okay, that we have it all under control, that we are not struggling to make sense of things. But we know deep down that this is not true either in the world at large, where global forces are wreaking havoc, and or in our own personal spheres, where we may be dealing with a host of challenges. We might be ashamed to admit that we feel shattered, fragmented, as discardable as a broken dish. But such vulnerability may be the gift that God is giving us through our trials. Times of weakness and discouragement are precisely the moments in which we acknowledge our need for God and for other people. The 13th-century Persian poet and theologian Rumi observed, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Sooner or later, the flimsy façade of competence that we have erected will collapse. And at that moment, the light of God’s love will pour through the wreckage, and illuminate the beauty that God yearns to create in and through our brokenness. Do we dare open ourselves to his light?
O perfect God, Give me the courage today to show imperfection to you and to others. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041522.cfm
To hear the Gesualdo Six sing “O sacred head, sore wounded,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_OBbjAfVrI
