The Gift of Tears

Boys don’t cry. I was raised with this mindset. As a young boy, I always heard my mother tell a story of how my older brother was bullied in the third grade. She saw him cry and forced him to go back to the school and fight the bully. He did and he won. I never saw my brother cry while I was a kid or as a young man. By the way, my father wasn’t around long enough for me to see much of anything let alone him show this kind of emotion.  The only time I saw my brother cry was when I entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1998.

Having made the decision to discern God’s calling, men who identify with the charism of St. Ignatius of Loyola, apply and get accepted into a two year, let’s call it, training period. Here they live, pray and serve while they see how God’s graces develop in their lives. Men enter a novitiate to see if this new lifestyle of serving God and others and living in community is for them. Men focus on things that bring them closer to God and  detach from worldly things.

Hearing that we would not be able to see one another until Christmas my family grew sad. But it was my brother’s reaction that surprised us all. He cried.

My brother David and I.

My brother was the father figure of the family and my role model, this was a big deal that he cried. My mother and sister were shocked. I too was surprised but I knew something greater was at work here and I was at peace because of it.

My three sons: Matthew, Elijah and Jacob.

Boys don’t have to see men in their lives cry to cry. They don’t have to see crying to feel or be sympathetic. They do need to know that feeling sadness, remorse may produce tears.  What boys need to know is that showing these feelings is normal and healthy. Having an adult help them through these emotions is what is most important.

Since we never had that kind of support growing up, my brother took one road and I took another. You already know his. Mine was different. It was in prayer that I discovered it was perfectly normal to shed tears. Having a lot of anger and resentment, I had a lot to work through. Yet, it was in spiritual direction that I discovered that the gift of tears is a way that God heals. It is a way that God helps a person deepen the relationship with Him and others.

Why tears?  Not only is it a result of feelings but it provides a comfort of whatever pain or healing that needs to be experienced.  There is also an awe and wonder aspect of deep and intimate prayer. A new awareness or a deeper awareness of oneself may result. The recognition of that awareness may also produce tears.

Biking is a new form of prayer experience for me.

That’s the gift. The gift to see yourself in a new light, in a new way, different than before. That gift is what keeps one going back, back to that special place where you can be with God.

Saint Teresa of Avila was noted to have said that more tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. During prayer, I don’t wish to produce tears. It happens when it happens. I know it’s real because I enter prayer for different reasons. Desiring to cry is certainly not one of them.  I just wish to encounter God. Period. That encounter involves many things like ideas, images, emotions and sometimes … tears.

I thank God for my brother David Alarcon.

I thank God for my spiritual director, Claudio Burgaleta, SJ.

I thank God for answered prayers.

I thank God for the gift of tears.

Amen.