SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA

Originally published by Blessed Is She

Unaware of what I was going through, a friend sent me a picture of a kintsugi bowl with the message, “When I see you, I see gold.”

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of bowl-mending. Artisans reassemble broken ceramic bowls and costly gold is set into the seams between the shards. The cracks are not concealed, they are accentuated—remaining a symbol of admiration, bestowing more value, emboldening strength.

Today as we celebrate the feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, I can’t help but think of how accurately her life resembled kintsugi. Set against the brutal Black Plague in Italy, her witness emanated a rare kind of beauty, reminding us that God doesn’t merely fix us in our suffering, He restores us to usefulness, and by virtue of gleaming Grace, transforms the world around us.

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