LIKE MANY people, I always seem to be in a hurry, rushing and dashing from one task to another. So as to ‘beat the clock’, I try to squeeze in extra jobs at home before racing out of the front door. But it’s really not the best plan…

A few weeks ago I decided I just had enough time to do a little dusting. To my dismay, I dropped my figure of Our Lady and one of her hands broke off. Later the same day, I presented the damaged figure to my husband and suggested he might like to fix it. My son, who likes puns, said, ‘You didn’t hand-le her very carefully, did you Mum?’

Incredibly, it was only a couple of days later, when walking past the statue of a saint, that I accidentally knocked it off. It fell on the floor and the saint’s head snapped off. Unfortunately, my three grown-up children saw me. My son – the wag – immediately piped up: ‘You’ve really developed the clumsy gene at the moment, Mum! Super-glue will never go out of business while you’re around!’ And indeed, my two statues were duly glued back together and if you didn’t look too hard and spot the cracks, they looked good as new.

During June, the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul is remembered. These two titans of the church had a rather shaky start to their journey of faith in Christ, but by the love and grace of our Lord, they became inspirational leaders of the early Church. We, like Peter and Paul are imperfect and our ‘cracks’ are often evident in our faults and mistakes.