From Mother Melania:

“Have you ever heard of kintsugi? Literally ‘golden joinery,’ kintsugi is ‘the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum … As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise’ (Thanks, Wikipedia!). I won’t presume to discuss the Japanese philosophies related to this art. But there are certainly deeply Christian parallels to be drawn. Three come immediately to mind.

“First are those who valiantly and humbly endure life’s inequities or unjust persecution, such as Job, Patriarch Joseph, Jeremiah, and the beggar Lazarus. Crushed in various ways through no fault of their own, these saints became beautiful not despite the cracks, but because of how they dealt with them. Without such trials, these saints would never have become as great as they are.

“Second are those who sinned greatly but repented deeply, such as King David, Peter, and Paul. Their great sins are there for all to see and the sins remain sinful. Yet, Christ healed their fractured souls with the gold of their repentance and faithfulness.

“Then there is Christ Himself. He didn’t just valiantly and humbly endure unjust persecution: He came to earth for that very purpose – for OUR sake. So, His wounded side and hands remain in eternity as visible signs of the beauty of His victorious self-sacrificial love.

“So, let’s take heart. Are we innocently enduring persecution? Christ can make us beautiful through our trials. Have we fallen into serious sin? We can repent and still become great saints. We can even go past these things to suffer freely for love of Christ and His people. Thus, we shall most deeply resemble Him Whose greatest glory is that He was freely broken for our sake.”

—Abbess Melania, Holy Assumption Monastery