Mary’s Tears

Learning how mother’s tears can be sad and joyful

09/15/2023

Lk 2:33-35 Jesus' father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

I am a huge movie buff, and it is by far my favorite pastime. Of all the millions of movies I have watched over the years the hardest one was “The Passion of the Christ” directed by Mel Gibson. Have you ever watched it? It is unbelievably brutal, gory, and inhumane in how it depicts how violently and mercilessly the Roman soldiers tortured Jesus.

And the climax of their cruelty was not so much the crucifixion but the scourging at the pillar. If you saw that scene, you would never forget it. Besides just whipping him with coarse chords, some chords had metal barbs on the tips of them so that they would stick into the flesh of Christ, and rip off chunks of Jesus’ skin and muscle.

While I was watching that scene, I could tell tears were starting to well up in my eyes. How could they do that to Jesus, I thought in outrage. But I decided to tough it out, and would not let the tears roll down my face. If Jesus could be that tough for me, then I could be tough for him, too. And believe it or not, I did pretty good.

But then the camera panned the people who were the bystanders and on-lookers at the scourging. And finally the camera came to rest on Mary, and showed her sorrowful face filled with unspeakable agony watching what people were doing to her Son. And at that moment I totally lost it, and started sobbing like a baby. You know, it’s one thing to see Jesus suffer because I would sort of “take it like a man.” But to see Mary suffer was more than I could handle. And in some ways perhaps it was harder for Jesus to see his mom weeping than it was to endure the scourging.

Today’s gospel is taken from Luke 2, where Simeon prophesies that Mary would suffer, and in some mysterious way, she would be intimately associated with Jesus’ saving suffering. Simeon says to Mary, “And you yourself a sword will pierce.” I cannot help but think Mary felt the tip of that sword thrust into her heart as she stood there watching her Son’s scourging.

And the sword went all the way through her heart at the crucifixion when her Son died on the Cross. Again, in some ways maybe seeing Mary weeping at the foot of the cross felt more painful than the nails in his hands and his feet, and the lance in his side. There are few things in the world harder than watching your mother weeping.

Boys and girls, have you ever made your mother cry? Now, that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes women cry for joy. If you bring home a bouquet of flowers for your mom, I bet you would see tears of joy. If you finally made an A on a Latin test, I bet she might start crying. If you clean your room for a change, her eyes would definitely fill up with tears. Most women weep for joy the day a man proposes to marry them.

But most of the time our moms weep because we disappoint them by our bad behavior, or hurt them with our thoughtless and unkind words, or wound their hearts when we ignore them or forget special days, like their birthdays and anniversaries. And that should break our hearts, whenever we see our moms weep, and we were the cause of their grief.

But on very rare occasions – perhaps only once in a lifetime – our moms cry tears of both joy and sorrow. I think that is what happened to my mom when I told her I wanted to be a priest when I was a junior in high school She was happy, of course, because it is a great blessing to have a priest in the family. And mom would not have to compete with a daughter-in-law. So there was joy.

But she also felt sadness because being a priest meant I would not get married – and maybe feel lonely – and also that meant I would not give her grandchildren. In other words, those motherly tears of joy and sorrow flow when a son or daughter does God’s will more than their parents’ will or even more than their own will.

I think those were exactly the same kind of tears that Mary cried at Jesus’ scourging and his death on the cross. Her Son, Jesus, did his heavenly Father’s will more than his earthly mother’s will or even his own will according to his human nature. Those kinds of tears on a mother’s face are very hard to see, but they can also be a great blessing to see.

Praised be Jesus Christ!