SAINT PAUL’S MISSING PIECES

Originally published by Blessed Is She

We visited our new neighbors recently. Among other things that adorned their living room, a large card table filled with tiny puzzle pieces occupying a dainty corner as children beamed with ecstatic eagerness. Apparently assembling complicated jigsaw puzzles was winter tradition. 

As candid conversations waltzed their way through salty savories, a sudden sigh erupted. Three puzzle pieces had gone missing. Until those were found, the puzzle remained merely a puzzle, not the picture promised on the face of the box. Emphatically we joined in the search, traversing floors underneath tables and checking crowded corners—finally concluding that the puzzle company had produced a defective product.

That evening, I remembered how accurately the Gospel describes our human condition. We are meant to be “complete,” like a magnificent picture displaying God’s glory to the world; but something has happened, leaving us with missing pieces and lots of holes.

In the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, we are awakened to one of the most remarkable revelations Paul had: the razor-sharp recognition of his own missing pieces. For a long time, Paul was trained to live as if nothing was missing in his life—nothing, until he encountered the irresistible Risen Christ. 

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