Crying during Good Friday Liturgy

[Mimi]

I was close to crying, mostly due to Liturgical abuse.

Blessed be God.

Been there, too! And for all those who are possibly receiving Our Lord unworthily.

Welcome to CA forums, Bert! And I see the OP has only 2 posts listed - welcome!

I am one of the musicians at my parish. One year I was asked to play the accompaniment for At the Cross Her Station Keeping (Stabat Mater) during the Stations of the Cross. A few times I teared up so that I couldn’t see the notes & I’m afraid I made a few clinkers.

I often tear up just before communion, or after during Mass. Sometimes I get choked up during a hymn.

When I think of Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross – she Knew He was doing what the Father sent Him to accomplish, but still… I think “If that were my son!” Sometimes I think “Why aren’t other ppl weeping?”

Blessed Pasch,
Mimi

 

[LPS]

I often weep at mass - I am just sooooo moved by the beauty and holiness.

I found an article one time about a “gift of tears.” I’ve been watching ever since for other articles, and found this one. You might like it

The tears shed by those who have received the gift of tears are not shed in desperation or turmoil but rather in peace, thanksgiving and rejoicing, in offering the eternal eucharist of the heart where unceasingly we watch and pray. For many in our modem world the gift of tears is unknown. Fragmentation, loneliness, isolation dominate our lives and we know not our own hearts or the hearts of others. We become strangers to each other and to ourselves and to God. He is at the door awaiting an opportunity to enter. Created in God’s image, however, men and women are icons of the holy one, illuminated by His Grace, animated by the Holy Spirit. We have only to practice metanoia, the turning away from all that is not of God towards God. Then the divine warmth melts all those places within that we’ve been protecting, boarded up over time, numb, inaccessible, cast down in shame.

Our Lord cries to us in the depths of our hearts, “Awake 0 sleeper, rise up from among the dead, and Christ will illumine you”. “And you shall be as I fashioned you, a child of light capable of great compassion and love. And then I will awaken within you my Holy Spirit. You will know the profound love without limits I have for you. And your flow of tears will witness to the melting of frozen places within you. The softening of your tear stained face will be an invitation for me to take up my abode in your heart. I will remove from you all harsh judgement” He says: “Look to my mother, the Theotokos to see her tears as she stood by my cross remembering the words of the holy prophet and righteous elder, Simeon, ‘A sword shall pierce your heart’. Notice how she understands this offering of myself in love for the salvation of the world. See how she treasures all these things in her heart and how her heart becomes a place of offering of herself in prayer, a place of strong silence emanating from and participating in the salvation of the world”.

Slowly we come to understand the true gift of tears as God’s invitation to join in the work of redemption. This gift is given by God’s grace. It visits us gently in the still of the dark night when quietly we are inspired to hold God’s people before Him in prayer. It shakes us abruptly into prayer consciousness in the face of the tempter, potential dangers so that here too, we can be alert and wrap His precious children in the garment of protective prayer. St Silouan, holy monk of Mt Athos, prayed these words: “Merciful Lord, I pray for all the people of the world that they might know Thee by Thy Holy Spirit”. In his struggle with despair, St Silouan was one of us. In his offering of himself to God, he shows us the spiritual path, validating divine adoption, the becoming children of God, each one a child of the fight.

May God deliver us from any hardness of heart, foster within us true humility and love.

 

[378]

This past Good Friday, during the reading of the 12 Passion Gospels at Holy Friday Vespers, I heard many people sniffling and saw some tearing up during the procession of the Cross and his body through the church. I was not alone, and you certainly are not the only one who does this on that day.

 

[GoGoDiego]

After the liturgy, there was a burial procession of Christ around the neighborhood. (Sto. Entierro, as it is locally called in the Philippines)
As the procession reached back the church, the dead Christ was interred in a “tomb.” Before closing it, the priest asked us to put flowers and venerate it. Many people cried as they strew flowers and kissed the body of the dead Christ and the image of the sorrowful mother.