“There is perhaps no surer road to peace than the one that starts from little islands and oases of genuine kindness, islands and oases constantly growing in number and being continually joined together until eventually, they ring the world” – Dominique Pire, OP
Some of my fondest memories as a child was endless hours working on jigsaw puzzles with my mom. My mother and I were different in many ways, which made butting of heads inevitable, yet we had things we loved doing together. Jigsaw puzzles were one of them. Growing up in Peru, we would vacation to the US every couple of years, often picking up new puzzles on the trip.
One that I thought we would never complete was a puzzle of spilled milk – all white with curved edges, so that finished it indeed looked like a puddle of milk. It even came in a box that resembled a carton of milk. I remember being frustrated that they all seemed the same when I had become so dependent on matching colors to match pieces. I was thrilled when we finished it, but I never wanted to do that puzzle or one like it again. I much preferred the puzzles where each colorful piece was a hint of a big picture to be ultimately revealed.
Fast forward many, many, many years and I remember sitting at Mass listening to the priest talk about our God-given uniquenesses. He tied it together describing us as puzzle pieces, each a unique part of a big picture. At the end of Mass, he invited us to come up and pick a piece of a puzzle from a box and take it home as a reminder that without each and every one of us the puzzle would be incomplete. I carried that puzzle piece in my wallet for years until it was so rubbed down that it was falling apart.
In the Gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus say, “….The Lord, our God, is the one and only God. And you must love Him with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. The second is: You must love others as much as yourself. No other commandments are greater than these.”
Our Christian communities are not immune to the destruction that comes from perverted self-love leading to the distortion of charity and affection towards others. Sadly, there have been too many revelations of the abuse in our communities. We condemn such violence and judge those that committed such crimes. In some ways seeing perverted self-love to that extreme numbs us to the more subtle ways in which it runs through and erodes at the fabric of true charity.
In Letter to the Hebrews (10:24), we read, “In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good.” The virtue of charity is an outward manifestation of our knowing God, loving God, and therefore serving God.
When we love others, it is like putting two pieces of a puzzle together. We are united by an act of charity. As humans, we naturally fear rejection. We fear being hurt. We fear to be vulnerable. As such, it is easy to just put ourselves out there to be charitable to other puzzle pieces that look most like us. As the pieces of my spilled milked puzzle, we recognize that we may be slightly different in shape, but we share the same color so we should come together safely. As we reach out in charity this way, our puzzle gets larger and larger. That feels good – the community is growing!
When we take a step back and admire the puzzle, it is a contoured shape of all white.
I liken this to safe spaces, echo chambers, and testifying to like-minded people. We are doing all the “right things,” but are we really? When the puzzle we put together in no way shows any image that reflects God in us, are we genuinely present and loving the way we are asked?
“…I have distributed [the virtues] in such a way that no one has all of them. Thus I have given you reason – necessity, in fact – to practice mutual charity. I could well have supplied each of you with all your needs, both spiritual and material. But I wanted to make you dependent on one another so that each of you would be my ministers, dispersing the graces and gifts that you have received from me” – St. Catherine Sienna, The Dialogue, 7.
You, my fellow Mama Bear, are made to be a unique and beautiful puzzle piece. No two pieces designed in the same shape or colors or image. Our virtues and gifts differ from each other. Do not let anyone judge what God has called you to do by making you believe your charity must look like theirs. That your gifts must look like theirs. That your virtues look like theirs. That your life, your family, your worship, your anything must look like theirs. Our Christian community sometimes feels like it is calling us to conform to being a white puzzle piece – a piece like all others with just a little bit of uniqueness in its shape. Accept your full God-given uniqueness as the gift it is and let it shine. It is in being that colored piece that we have started to reflect the image of God, and in communion with others create an image of God that invites others to want to join their colors to the puzzle.
As I prayerfully reflected on these images of puzzles that God put in my heart, I was taken to yet another type of puzzle. The most colorful and detailed – and so challenging to put together. A photomosaic puzzle! Each piece is a unique portrait within itself – vivid and complete and could be a piece of art without being united to other parts. Linking them together is a labor of love, painful at times, with a myopic view necessary to try and see the unique shapes that should come together because the little portraits were no clue to that. When finally together, and taking a step back, somehow it displays one amazing, beautiful, and complete picture.
Photomosaic puzzles advertise on the box with “thousands of miniature photographs combine to make one awesome portrait.”
Now that is what I believe to be the puzzle God is asking us to make!
We are each completely and entirely made in the image of God. When we live the first commandment to love God with all our being, to be in a complete relationship with Him, our souls can fully display His wonder to the world. Yet, we were never asked to only rest in love of God and self. We aren’t just called, we are commanded, to love others as much as we love ourselves. Not more – where we lose sight of whom God created us to be. Not less – where we pridefully want more for ourselves than others. We are to love as fully as we love ourselves – to see God in them.
Puzzle time!
- Don’t conform to being a white puzzle piece.
- Name the fears and anxieties drive you to hide who you
- Declare to yourself that you are more than whom others tell you to be
- Know God made you be beautifully and colorfully you
- See the colored pieces.
- Reflect on your unique gifts and talents, prayerfully consider how you are being asked to use them in your current season of life
- Recognize the gifts and talents of others, and encourage them in their journey
- Match the pieces.
- Pray for the courage to be charitable where God is asking you to be – even with the odd shaped and funny colored puzzle pieces
- Reject pride and distorted self-love that destroys true charity
- Strive to be a photomosaic piece – uniquely beautiful yet essential to the big picture.
- Prayerfully refresh your soul in His love so that your colors will be refined into the image of God you are ultimately called to be
In a world where you have the choice to a single colored puzzle piece, chose to be a uniquely beautiful piece that displays your God-given virtues.
In a world where you can seek out other puzzle pieces that look so much like yours, allow yourself to fit together with the different shapes and colors around you.
In a world full of blurry colored pieces, strive to be a photomosaic piece – a unique and complete image that together with others can make an impressive portrait of God’s love.
By being fully present to those in the place and season we are in life, let us match our pieces together. Let us build a photomosaic, full of images of charity and kindness that will eventually ring the earth.
xoxo
Catherine