Because tears are a path to God

Crying is not a weakness; it can be useful on our spiritual journey.

In Homer's time, the bravest warriors let their tears flow freely. Nowadays, tears are often considered a sign of weakness. However, they can be a real sign of strength and say a lot about us.

Whether repressed or free, tears have a thousand faces. Sister Anne Lécu, Dominican, philosopher, prison doctor and author of Des larmes [On tears], explains how tears can be a real gift.

“Blessed are those who weep, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5: 4). How do you interpret this bliss by operating, as you do, in a place of great suffering?

Anne Lécu: It is a provocative bliss that must be taken without over-interpreting it. There are indeed many people who experience terrible things, who cry and who do not console themselves, who will not laugh today or tomorrow. That said, when these people can't cry, their suffering is worse. When someone cries, they usually cry for someone, even if that person is not physically there, someone remembered, someone they loved; in any case, I am not in a completely desolate solitude. Unfortunately we see many people in prison who can no longer cry.

Is the absence of tears something to worry about?

The absence of tears is much more concerning than tears! Either it is a sign that the soul has become numb or a sign of too much loneliness. There is a horrible pain behind dry eyes. One of my incarcerated patients had skin sores on different parts of her body for several months. We didn't know how to treat it. But one day he said to me, “You know, the wounds that ooze on my skin, it's my soul that suffers. They are the tears that I cannot cry. "

Doesn't the third beatitude promise that there will be consolation in the kingdom of heaven?

Of course, but the Kingdom begins now! Simeon the New Theologian said in the XNUMXth century: "He who has not found it here on earth bid farewell to eternal life." What we are promised is not only consolation in the afterlife, but also the certainty that joy can come from the very heart of misfortune. This is the danger of utilitarianism: today we no longer think we can be sad and peaceful at the same time. Tears assure us that we can.

In your book Des larmes you write: "Our tears escape us and we cannot fully analyze them".

Because we never totally understand each other! It is a myth, a contemporary mirage, that we can fully see ourselves and others. We must learn to accept our opacity and our finitude: this is what it means to grow. People cried more in the Middle Ages. However, the tears will disappear with modernity. Because? Because our modernity is driven by control. We imagine it because we see, we know, and if we know, we can. Well, that's not it! Tears are a liquid that distorts the gaze. But we see through tears things that we would not see in a pure superficial view. Tears say what is in us as blurry, opaque and deformed, but they also speak of what is in us that is greater than ourselves.

How do you distinguish real tears from "crocodile tears"?

One day a little girl replied to her mother who had asked her why she was crying: "When I cry, I love you more". Genuine tears are those that help you love better, those that are given without being sought. False tears are those that have nothing to offer, but aim to get something or go for a show. We can see this distinction with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and St. Augustine. Rousseau never stops enumerating his tears, staging them and watching himself cry, which doesn't move me at all. St. Augustine weeps because he looks at Christ who moved him and hopes that his tears will lead us to him.

Tears reveal something about us, but they also wake us up. Because only the living cry. And those who cry have a burning heart. Their ability to suffer is awakened, even to share. Crying is feeling influenced by something that is beyond us and hoping for comfort. It is no coincidence that the Gospels tell us that, on the morning of the Resurrection, it was Mary Magdalene, who had cried the most, who received the greatest joy (Jn 20,11: 18-XNUMX).

What does Mary Magdalene teach us about this gift of tears?

His legend combines the roles of the sinful woman crying at Jesus' feet, Mary (Lazarus's sister) mourning her dead brother and the one who remains crying over the empty tomb. Desert monks intertwined these three figures, prompting the faithful to cry tears of penance, tears of compassion and tears of God's desire.

Mary Magdalene also teaches us that whoever is torn by tears is, at the same time, united in them. She is the woman who weeps with despair over the death of her Lord and with joy at seeing him again; she is the woman who mourns her sins and sheds tears of gratitude because she is forgiven. Embodies the third bliss! In her tears there is, as in all tears, a paradoxical power of transformation. Blinding, they give sight. From pain, they can also become a soothing balm.

She cried three times, and so did Jesus!

Quite right. The scriptures show that Jesus wept three times. On Jerusalem and the hardening of the hearts of its inhabitants. Then, at the death of Lazarus, he cries the sad and sweet tears of love afflicted by death. At that moment, Jesus weeps over the death of man: he weeps over every man, every woman, every child who dies.

Finally, Jesus weeps in Gethsemane.

Yes, in the Garden of Olives, the tears of the Messiah go through the night to ascend to God who seems to be hidden. If Jesus is indeed the Son of God, then it is God who cries and begs. Her tears envelop all the supplications of all times. They carry them to the end of time, until that new day comes, when, as the Apocalypse promises, God will have his final home with humanity. Then it will wipe every tear from our eyes!

Do Christ's tears “carry with them” each of our tears?

From that moment on, no more tears are lost! Because the Son of God wept tears of anguish, desolation and pain, every person can believe, in fact, that every tear since then has been collected as a fine pearl by the Son of God. Every tear of a son of man is a tear of the Son of God. This is what the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas intuited and expressed in this brilliant formula: “No tears should be lost, no death should remain without resurrection”.

The spiritual tradition that developed the "gift of tears" is part of this radical discovery: if God himself cries, it is because tears are a way for him, a place to find him because he remains there, a response to his presence. These tears should simply be received more than you think, the same way we receive a friend or a gift from a friend.

Interview by Luc Adrian taken from aleteia.org