That’s why I wear my glasses and not my contact lenses to Good Friday services. I’m not kidding, I learned this lesson the hard way once, I teared up so badly that I lost one and had to drive home verrrry carefully!
I thought I was being a little nutty, but was reassured by quite a few people that they well up during Good Friday liturgy, and they do the same thing at Midnight Mass on Christmas, the Easter Vigil liturgy, and a few other times during the year. So I’m thinking that it is entirely normal to have some compassion, and yes, some gratitude for the events that are being unfolded in front of us. We’d have to be comatose to not recognize it for what it is, and respond to it on some heartfelt level. Many people tear up. Others experience this emotion differently, and it’s not our place to judge their compunction and gratitude by what they are expressing.
So allow the tears to come, take Kleenex, and leave the contacts out!