Remade

I once read a thought on sin. Is it better to never have sinned, or to have sinned and been forgiven? To remain forever. Sinless, like our Blessed Mother, means the soul is never stained and always white and pure. But, to have sinned and been forgiven means the soul can guide others who have fallen. The ‘chicken or the egg’ thought, I guess..

Once fallen or dropped, the vessel is broken. Perhaps it can be mended and made serviceable again, but it can never again be as good as new.

Is sin like this? Fall into sin just once and the soul is forever broken and stained. A soul which had even once fallen into mortal sin can never hold God’s grace again. Even glued back together in the Sacramental Confession, the soul ever shows the mended cracks and will always leak.

But this isn’t how God’s grace and Divine Mercy works.

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. Kintsugi is a philosophy which treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. Kintsugi actually makes the broken vessel stronger than it was originally.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Ephesians 2:8-10

THIS is what God’s Divine Mercy and Grace does to the soul. The blood of Jesus is like the lacquer and God’s mercy and grace the ‘gold, silver and platinum.’ God melds the broken soul back together, then with His blood and Divine Mercy, makes the soul new.

There would certainly be a case for ‘never having sinned’, but only Mary was given that grace. Since Adam and Eve, mankind has dealt with the concupiscence of sin. God could have stopped that first sin and kept man pure and in Eden. But, God knew His Divine Mercy would make the redeemed soul stronger than ever it was before it fell.

The truth is: you have been restored by grace. Innocence is not lost forever. Brokenness is not permanent. With God’s grace you have been restored and made into something entirely new.

Have always at the root of your soul, faith and trust in Divine Mercy. Trust that no matter how broken your vessel may be, God can make it new and better. Just come to Him, asking to be repaired.