Gift of Tears

  • Thread starter Thread starter vej09
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
V

vej09

Guest
I have heard, though reading, etc., of the Gift of Tears that some people seem to have. What exactly is this, and how is it a gift?
 
First I’ve ever heard of it! I’d like to know the answer to that myself:)
 
One of my teachers told me about this (probabky the only orthodox teacher in my school). He says that he sometimes begins crying during the Consecration and the Elevation.

Very interesting.
 
Hmm. is it just because it is really emotional and overwhelming with joy that he does it? Or is it truly a gift? I’d like to know what this gift of tears is? A gift from God? or just an emotional experience? Curious! 🙂
 
Marilena said:
Hmm. is it just because it is really emotional and overwhelming with joy that he does it? Or is it truly a gift? I’d like to know what this gift of tears is? A gift from God? or just an emotional experience? Curious! 🙂
Click to expand...
He said that he is just overwhelmed by being in the very presence of Christ. I suppose that is a gift.
 
vej09 said:
I have heard, though reading, etc., of the Gift of Tears that some people seem to have. What exactly is this, and how is it a gift?
Click to expand...
I read somewhere it was a Buddhist thing.
 
Okay, I’ll give this a shot.

I know of this from my experience in the Charismatic movement. An acquaintance of mine experienced this. He would often begin crying usually in connection with prayer or in front of the Blessed sacrament, etc. The person who experiences this is going through some deep healing (that’s the gift part). I’ve heard there is a book on the giftof tears but I haven’t seen it.

I think related to this would be the gift of laughter; but not the freakish kind observed at the Toronto Vineyard.
 
This is a fascinating subject.

I returned to the Church this year after a 25 year absence, and for the first four months after I came back I was frequently moved to tears during the consecration. I felt a mixture of sadness, at having been away for so long, and joy at being back.
 
I’ve heard of it, I think I may have it.
I don’t think having the gift maks you better than someone however, and I can see how there’d be a pride coming with it. It’s also important to never fall into sentamentalism, where you start to expect and depend on being emotionally moved in some way. But I’ve found it is a source of healing and realization for me, where, when I cry, it’s almost always when I’m alone (sometimes in the Church, sometimes at Mass)
God knows how each of us are, and He gives us gifts accordingly. He knows I’m a passionate person, and will sometimes get very down and sometimes very up, and so the tears (while not a constant thing, though usually a surprise) remind me that God is with me in all of it.
It’s a big mystery to me though. All I know is, I give my emotions to God when it happens. Emotions should be rightly ordered like anything, and when they are, hoo boy you’d be amazed at much happier you can be. A deep peace comes from giving God control of your emotions 🙂 He knows better how I feel then even I do, so I try to trust Him.

Don’t know if that helps?

Tears can also be a manifestation of God’s love to someone in the beginning of their spiritual journey, as a consolation from God. But as a person matures spiritually, we’re to depend less and less on our emotions, and more and more on our faith, hope, and love.

God Bless!
Mordocai
 
I ddecided google this and see if there was anything in the internet and I found these links:
Tears - Gift of the Holy Spirit?

this one especially, Sacred Tears, comes closest to the difinition I’ve understood. The tears are not based in emotion but are and exterior sign of an interior healing.

I experience tears when acknowledging Truth, in a song, poem, scripture. Sometimes I think it’s an emotional response, sometimes I don’t. I haven’t thought of it as a Gift of Tears, maybe it is.

There appear to be many understandings of Gift of Tears including that crying is a necessary and healthy expression and usually in connection to greif and loss. Maybe it’s necessary to explain to stoics about tears as a gift; however, I don’t think of this definition when I think of “Gift of Tears”.
 
This sounds like an experience I’ve had a couple times, but it wasn’t an emotional crying, I just started to shed tears in front of the Sacrament as if my body was praising Christ or something. I don’t know…maybe my allergies were just acting up!
 
About ten years ago I went through a very very very difficult divorce with a child custody battle in which my abusive bipolar ex husband got custody of my three young daughters for a year or so. Boy o boy was I torn up spiritually and emotionally by that, but never lost my total faith in God that it would all work out right, and it has.

At the time all this was happening, every time I went to church tears would just stream down my face the whole time, and people would ask me was I okay, etc. It was embarrassing and impossible to explain to strangers.

This still happens to me in church. I have to struggle to keep from tearing up most times. It doesn’t have anything to do with the divorce situation now, but is more like an abject needing of God and a connection to him somehow. It is like reaching out to him and falling into his arms. It happens more during the consecration, etc. I am not like weeping, just tears flow. But it seems like people wouldn’t understand, so I try to hide it. I don’t know if this is what you are talking about, though. Maybe I am just still having panic attacks in church.
 

There is such a gift, and it is to be expected that there should be, as our emotions and bodies are every bit as much in need of redemption and healing as our souls.​

Equally, the mere physical experience of weeping is morally indifferent - the real test of tears, ISTM, is whether our hearts and our wills are set upon Christ & upon obeying Him. If they are not, then it’s probably our temperament that is affected, but nothing more; our temperaments are parts of our personality, after all. We can be thankful for these things, but we must never cling on to them 🙂

Even if we are fairly sure in a given case that this is a gift, one thing we must never do is rest in the experience; we must never try to keep hold of it. If we do, it won’t keep - it will go rotten, like the manna in the wilderness which the Israelites tried to hoard. Trying to hoard these things stops us from attending to what God is doing in our lives after giving us this (or similar) gifts. And anyway - why seek to hold on to the gifts instead of their Giver ? That is why the CC insists on our being detached from what is given us.

St. Philip Neri and St. John of the Cross have a lot to say on this. There is also an article on tears in the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia ##
 
vej09 said:
I have heard, though reading, etc., of the Gift of Tears that some people seem to have. What exactly is this, and how is it a gift?
Click to expand...
The Gift of Tears is the term used for that experience sometimes arising from the Prayer of Quiet, that level of prayer wherein God initiates the soul into the beginnings of the higher states of prayer. The Prayer of Quiet can give rise to a great delight in the depths of the soul that overflows into gentle tears. The Gift of Tears is not an overwhelming feeling of grief for one’s sins or an exhibit of emotionalism. It is erroneous (though sadly popular) to speak automatically over-flowing emotion (as beneficial as that may be) as the Gift of Tears.
The prayer [of quiet]. . .is very easy when compared with the effort involved in discursive meditation, and even if it lasts a long time, it does not weary the recipient. Because it is infused, this prayer can be neither originated nor prolonged by our efforts or desire, and it can bring to one’s intimate depths a great delight, a delight that can spill over into the body on the emotional level. Tears may accompany this contemplation, but if they do, they are, says [St.] Teresa [of Jesus], ‘Gentle and without distress,’ Fire Within, Fr. Thomas Dubay, Ignatius Press, pgs. 88-89
Click to expand...
 
As for my experience, I am not an emotional person, having even been referred to as Mrs. Spock, but I think it is more of the healing thing someone mentioned than some elevated spiritual experience brought on by a pious devotion or whatever. I have had a difficult life in some ways, and I think it is probably pent up grief and sorrow that finds its way out when I feel closest to God. It is hard to control and not a gentle spiritual thing, but like Jesus is comforting me, and it all sort of comes to the surface. I guess I pegged it when I said it was more like panic attacks than some spiritual gift.😦
 
Its funny, its called “The gift of Tears” yet I find it so embarassing, I shouldnt but I do. It ALWAYS happens to me when I am feeling extremely guilty and head into confession, the priest sometimes has a hard time understanding me, as I am gasping for air, I think in my situation I cry because I think I am so unworthy yet Jesus is willing to forgive me. And then in Mass, when I receive communion and even if I dont, I hang my head down while the tears stream down my face, especially during the readings and the Gospel readings (depending what they are).

Like another poster said, it doesnt make you any more holy than others, its just something that some of us experience and others may not. I personally think it comes down to emotions, and I am a basket case with emotions :o
 
I think the gift of tears can also be part of compunction…crying in sorrow and remorse over offending our Lord…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top