As mothers, we cry. We cry for all sorts of reasons. We cry tears of joy and sorrow, excitement and disappointment, celebration and worry. We cry when we learn of a new little life growing within us and when we hold that sweet newborn for the first time. We cry when that pregnancy unexpectedly ends and grieve for what we thought was God’s plan. We cry when a child takes its first steps, says “Momma” for the first time, or runs a high fever for some unknown reason. We cry when we leave a baby for the first time and when a child leaves us. We cry when our children feel rejected or left out by friends and when they aren’t selected for that team for which they worked so hard to make. We cry when they cry. Our love runs deep, and their tears are often our tears.
As mothers, sometimes it feels as though our tears will never cease as we are consumed by worry or grief. Other times, our tears are therapeutic, bringing great relief from the intense pain and sadness we are holding inside. A good cry can be exhausting but can also be renewing, restorative, and life giving. But most of all, our tears can be redemptive for our children. Why? Because we love them! These tears are part of our vocation as mothers.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1766) tells us that, “To love is to will the good of the other.” What good mother does not will the good of her children? Of course we will their good. Taking that a little deeper, the CCC 1822 also says that “charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” Ultimately, our tears as mothers are shed because we love God. When our tears flow out of this rooted love, they become a gift holding enormous value. Profoundly, they are redemptive.
The horrific tragedies in recent weeks have left us in tears not only for our own children, but the children of countless other mothers as well. We cry for the innocent as well as for the perpetrators and their cheerleaders. Spiritual warfare is real; we are living it in real time. Evil is often loud, obnoxious and vile, but sometimes, as in the Garden, it slithers in and cons our children into questioning the beliefs and virtues we have worked to instill in them. It has infiltrated our culture, contorting and demonizing the good, the true, and the beautiful. Some of our children are slowly wooed into the lies, and it can break us. But this brokenness is not an end. It does not have the final word as the world would have us believe. Because we authentically love, these times offer opportunities for our cooperation with God’s love through our redemptive tears. The world needs this aspect of our vocation as much as it needs us to be faithful to all of the duties of our state in life as God wills. In this way, we are co-operators in the redemption of our children and the children of countless other mothers.
As Catholic mothers, many of us likely think of St. Monica when we shed tears for our children. We recall that St. Augustine shared in his book Confessions that St. Ambrose said to St. Monica regarding her tears for her lost son, “It cannot be that the son of so many tears should perish.” This was not because St. Monica was emotional over her son’s choices, but because she loved God, and she loved her son. Augustine further remembered the “rivers flowing down from my mother’s eyes, by which, before God and on my behalf, she daily watered the ground beneath her face.” And upon her death, Augustine “sorrowfully closed her eyes – the eyes which, he said, ‘had wept more for me than mothers weep over their child’s dead bodies.’” If it weren’t for the tears of St. Monica, there would be no St. Augustine. Our tears also hold such possibilities.
‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices, you will grieve, but your grief will become joy’ (Jn 16:20).
As we celebrate St Therese of Lisieux today, she reminds us that, “The good God has told us that on the last day He will wipe away all tears from our eyes, and without doubt, the more tears to be dried, the greater will be the consolation.”