Recently I read an article about the Devotion to the Tears of Our Blessed Mother. I had never heard about such devotion, obviously is linked to Our Lady of Sorrows. What really amazed me is that I have been preaching in quite a few retreats about the fact that I never noticed anybody mentioning or having any devotion to the tears of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly as Scriptures tell us Jesus wept. When I went to the Holy Land many years ago, I had the opportunity to visit a chapel that is shaped in the form of a tear in the Mount of Olives, Dominus Flevit, where our Lord wept at the sight of Jerusalem and the hardness of hearts of its inhabitants. Certainly we can also think that if our Lord perspired drops of blood in Gethsemani during His agony, then it is also very likely that He also wept at that moment. Oh precious tears, who could collect those tears. We have a tremendous devotion to the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and rightly so, since it continues to be the source of the efficacy of our redemption. But why not a devotion to the tears of our Lord, He who wept out of sorrow and compassion for each one of us. If He shed His blood for us we can certainly be sure that through His passion and crucifixion He also shed His tears to the last drop, in sorrow and pain. If only we could understand how precious those tears are, they are symbols of the Merciful heart of Jesus and His tremendous love for each one of us, and they are also a reminder of the pain that our sins have truly inflicted upon the fullness of the humanity of Christ. Certainly a devotion has to speak to a person, and where that person is at in his/her spiritual journey, I am just surprised that I have never read anywhere about such devotion, in fact I never heard of such a thing from any priest or religious throughout my whole seminary formation. Perhaps such devotion already exists, I am simply unaware of it.
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Hello Father! You bring up some good points. I am not to familiar with the Catholic Catechism, but can I ask you if you think it is possible that devotion to the tears of our Lord is could be recognized as the Holy Communion? Each time we partake in the drinking of the wine and the eating of the bread we do a devotion in remembrance of his suffering for us and redemption.
ReplyDeleteGod Be With You,
Matthew Lindsey
Matthew, for Catholics Holy Communion is more than a devotion, since according to Catholic Theology the Sacrament of the Eucharist (Holy Communion) is the real presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His whole presence, that is the fullness of His humanity (including His tears) and the fullness of His Divinity.
ReplyDeleteHmm, Thanks Father for sharing with me. When you say "real presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ", are you saying he is there with us partaking in the rite with us? Can you define that a little more for me? Thanks. The reason I am confused on this is for one, I am not to familiar with Catholic Theology and as I know Our Lord Jesus Christ as omnipresent in are lives.
ReplyDeleteI guess I could share a little about my understanding the Catholic faith, if you do not mind? I should also add the Catholic faith is a great marvel to me as it is to understand other people so we can effectively serve each other as we are commissioned to like in Romans 12(It is one of my favorite passages from the Scriptures).
Matthew, it is true that God is omnipresent, but that is not exactly what we mean by the real presence. Catholics believe that the bread and the wine during the sacrifice of the Mass are transubstantiated, that is fancy word. This means that the bread and the wine, after the priest invokes the coming of the Spirit and says the words of consecration during the Mass produce a change of substance in the bread and the wine. That is, they ARE NO LONGER bread and wine, although they appear to be bread and wine, smell like bread and wine, taste like bread and wine, but in REALITY they are now the BODY, BLOOD, SOUL AND DIVINITY of our Lord Jesus Christ truly present in His glorified state there in Holy Communion.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Father for explaining that to me.
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