“Ew, Pizza Face.”
I’m sorry, what!?
“I would never like someone who has a pizza face.”
Even as I write this, tears well in my eyes at the memory of hearing these words said about me and the scars they left on my heart.
When the Shame Sets in
It was seventh grade, and some of the cool, pretty girls in my grade were sleeping over. They had perfect bodies with perfect skin and everything (according to my twelve-year-old self). I saw myself as the awkward girl who had started puberty early and had horrible acne and bacne because of it.
Yet, surrounded by my friends, I felt empowered to share who my current crush was and how I wanted to know if he liked me back.
“Oh, I have his number—let’s call him and ask!” one of the girls squealed.
Ten minutes later, I found myself on one side of the room, gripping a pillow with anxiety, as my two friends sat on the other side, calling my crush on speaker phone.
“Hello?” It was him, and from the sound of it, he was also spending his night with other classmates of ours.
“Hey!” one of the girls shouted while I hid under some blankets. “We have a question for you! You know Liz from school? Well, she kinda sorta likes you and wanted to know if you liked her back. What do you think?”
It took one minute for this boy to turn me down and to make fun of my deepest insecurity, my face, in front of his and my friends for a laugh. The girls immediately yelled at him and forced him to apologize—which he did—but I still heard the branding behind those words: ugly, not worthy of being loved, not enough, shameful, scarred. I could never unhear them, and that shame sat with me for years to come.
Saint Kateri and the Struggles of Scars
Nobody knows the deep suffering and fear that comes from scars like my patron Saint, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha.
From the Mohawk clan, Native American Saint Kateri lost her family to a smallpox epidemic, which left her alive yet scarred and pockmarked. In wake of her tribe’s tragedy, Kateri was adopted by her uncle and continued living with the Mohawks until the Jesuit missionaries arrived and changed her life. Kateri was taken by the Christian faith and soon converted to Catholicism and even took a vow of virginity. Physically marred by smallpox, she was now emotionally wounded as she was ostracized by many of her people for leaving the Native American tradition. Despite her scars, Kateri continued forward, faithfully and fearlessly pursuing her relationship with God. Centuries later, she would become the Saint known as the “Lily of the Mohawks” for her purity and dedication to the Lord.
Kateri knew what it was like to be scarred, to be set aside in society and told that you are less than others, but that did not stop her from being beautiful in the eyes of God. Her scars didn’t hinder her from following God, but rather they enhanced her journey towards Christ as she shared in the scars He still bears on His resurrected Body. Through Christ, her healed wounds helped her become the Saint she is.
One year after that nickname was given to me, I met Saint Kateri personally. When it was time to pick my patron Saint for Confirmation, I stumbled across Kateri’s story. I remember being so touched by her strength and resilience even while being seen as physically unattractive by society—something I was still struggling with due to my own skin. I truly felt seen by her and her witness to Christ, and I knew she was the patron Saint for me.
How God Separates Shame From His Daughters
As the years went on, my acne and bacne never fully healed, but I felt like I had a friend to lean on, someone to ask for her intercession and be with me in my fears and experience of shame. And slowly, as my relationship with God grew and my skin healed, I grew out of that shameful mindset and saw myself as beautiful in Him—inside and out.
This doesn’t mean that once I spiritually and physically healed from being deemed “Pizza Face” that Kateri and I were done. In my early twenties, I had developed temporary dermographism, which made my skin flare up in rashes and bumps often. It was a new form of scarring that led to so much embarrassment and shame and hiding, both physical and spiritual.
Running to the Lily of the Mohawks again for guidance and aid, she reminded me of my inner beauty in Christ Jesus Who redeems us all and removed all our shame through the Cross. For Saint Paul reminds us, “He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). That was Saint Kateri’s message, that no matter what my skin looked like and how long it took me to heal, I would be perfect in Him, and that was enough.
Today I am twenty-six years old, and my dermographism and chronic acne are mostly gone; I see myself finally as a beautiful young woman. And while this is true, I still find myself often reaching out to Kateri for that reminder of where true beauty comes from: our beautiful souls and the relationship we have with our Lord. We will always have physical insecurities that make us question this truth—maybe it’s stretch marks or hip dips, grey hairs or a wrinkle or two—but thankfully, God and Saint Kateri work well together to reassure us that we are His beautiful and captivating daughters, scars or no. And sometimes it is the scars that make us beautiful.
His Battle, Our Victory
What scars—physical, emotional, or spiritual—are you afraid the whole world can see? Do you see yourself in twelve-year-old or early twenties Liz?
Our own scars can frighten and hurt us, but as Saint Kateri teaches us, they cannot take away our worth and beauty in Him, cannot shame us for who we are and who they wish we were. I am not my scars, and neither are you. As Saint Paul promises in his letters to the Romans, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame” (Romans 10:11).
May we—alongside Saint Kateri Tekakwitha—always bear our scars with Jesus and for Jesus, Who took away our shame with His own resurrected scars and ensured that we never have to be slaves to shame again.
Liz Homick works at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. as the loudest and most talkative librarian in the building. Since backpacking Europe for six weeks after graduating with her Master’s in Library Science, Liz is a huge advocate of solo travel and attending Mass in every language imaginable. She believes in unconditional kindness and existing brightly despite life’s storms.
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