Mary transforms our tears into joy
Appeal to Those Who Suffer
Brother who weeps, sister who suffers, listen. There are mysterious seeds in the Kingdom of God, from which joy blooms. It is a pure joy like the skies cleared by rain, gentle above all human feeling, a full joy that the world cannot understand and cannot disturb or take away.
The Fruit of Mysterious Seeds
From these mysterious seeds, peace, serenity, and intimate, profound, unchanging consolation ripen, which can only be divine. Do you want to know about these mysterious seeds of joy? *Do you know them?* They are delicate like the dew drops hanging from green leaves and glistening in the morning sun. They are hidden like the precious pearl and the treasure buried in the field of which the Gospel speaks. They are bitter like the drops of the sea, abundant like the sky’s rain, familiar to you like the water that quenches you and the bread that nourishes you, like the stream you see or hear running from your window into the depths of the valley.The True Nature of Tears
*Do you know what these mysterious seeds of joy are?* Brother who cries, sister who suffers, they are your tears of pain, the tears that well up in your gaze often irrepressible, that rise from your troubled heart, that flow silently over the bed of your sufferings, that serve as a bitter daily food to you in the perhaps inviolate solitude of your poor, unadorned room.The Value of Pain and Suffering
Because they will not be lost, gather these seeds of joy in the concave cup of your hands that cover your face, lift them up like a chalice to heaven on the altar of your daily sacrifice, and scatter them over the heart of God, over the heart of your brothers you love, so that they bear fruit as in good and fertile soil, as the Gospel says, a hundredfold.The Universality of Suffering and the Promise of Consolation
When it seems to you that you are the only one suffering, reflect that every man who comes into this world is like the sower who goes out at dawn to sow. His tears now fall on the barren stones, now between the parched thorns, now on the crushed dust of the road, now on the closed heart of his Father: God. If you know how to suffer and weep as it becomes one who by grace has become a Son of God, if you know, or in other words, to scatter your tears over the Heart of the Father, if you know to hide them and mix them with the pierced Heart of the Mother, who, though blessed, knew sorrow, you too become blessed, for then your weeping blossoms into joy.The Call to Hope
Jesus, the Son of God made man, could have chosen joy for Himself in this world, and yet by Your love and comfort He chose the Cross, that is, pain and tears, and encoded it into the constitution of His kingdom of happiness: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Also, your soul will receive the gift of consolation if it knows how to spend, like Him and with Him, the treasure of His tears. Yes, the psalmist distinguished the times of mourning and joy comparable to sowing and reaping. The present life is the time of sowing, the future life is the time of reaping: “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Just as the reapers of this earth, who sweat and weep when they stretch out their arms to sow, and sing joyfully when they hasten to reap the golden bundles.Oh, you who suffer from illness, persecution, abandonment, betrayal, or who nourish yourself in your poverty on your tears as bread and water. Do not let these seeds of life and happiness, which are your tears, the pains of your body, the angusties of your soul, fall in vain or be scattered into the emptiness of time; but with a spirit of faith and in conformity with love for the Divine Will, hide them in the merciful heart of God, where they will bear fruit a hundredfold in consolation and joy for today and for eternity. If the hope of the harvest lies in the seed, in its quality and quantity, so too does it lie in the shrewd diligence of the sower, the goodness of the soil, and the increase that God gives to the work of man. He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, but he who sows abundantly will reap abundantly.Do not despair if your afflictions are many, or if the time of your exile from your true homeland is prolonged, if many pains or enemies surround you like the waters that beat against the rock, perhaps parched by the suffering of your body or soul. Now that you know this, do not waste a single tear, nor a minute of your suffering. They are a gift, a treasure of God, the very joy and happiness of God offered to your conquest. The factor that transforms and enhances, in the creative process of joy and happiness, your humble and bitter tears is faith, love, humility, patience, and always remember, generosity, with which you accept and offer to God your suffering, with which you carry, praying, your cross: *with all this, you increase, with God’s help, the flowers and fruits of your pain that turns into joy*.Now you understand why you should not despair under the weight of your cross, but wait and love, and even now, enjoy its consolation! See, brother, how the spirit of faith and the soul of love that you put into your suffering on your part, and God’s mercy and grace, transform, enhance, ennoble the apparently useless days, the apparently sterile pains of your life as a sick person, a persecuted one, slandered, hated for justice and the name of Christ? *See how patient you need to be for the mysterious seeds of your tears to blossom into joy*.Look at Mary and her tears
Now perhaps you understand well the reason for Mary’s tears. You comprehend why the Mother of the God-Man, the Most Holy Virgin, could not help but turn to this mysterious source of life that is pain, becoming, thus, a fountain full to overflowing.Contemplation of the sorrowful Mother
Contemplate your Sorrowful and Weeping Mother! If the whole life of Christ was one of the cross and martyrdom, equally piercing and weeping was the life of his Mother for our love and due to our sins, from the first “fiat” of the Annunciation to the last “fiat” spoken at the foot of the cross where she was “lacrimosa” from which the Son was hanging!Maria, the Fountain of Beatitude
She, whom all generations will call blessed, could not fail to seek in this supreme fountain of beatitude, revealed by the hand of God, from this clay created from our humanity, that is, from the source of pain and tears sanctified by the Son of God, made our brother in pain and tears to redeem us from pain and tears, from sin and death.Invocation to Mary, the Comforter
Therefore, invoke as a comforter of your pain, Mary who wept, call her as Mother of all tenderness in your sufferings as a son, imitate her as a wise and strong Master in the dark and difficult hours of your earthly path.Offering Tears through Mary
Offer today, through Mary’s hands, your tears along with hers to divine Justice in a spirit of purification for your soul and for the repair of sins against your brothers. Offer, along with the blood of Christ’s divine wounds, those of your wounded body and torn heart in union with the sufferings of the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Mary.Faith, Patience, and Love Before the Cross
Have faith, patience, and love for your Cross, as She, the Sorrowful One, believed, carried, and loved her Cross, which was that of her divine Son. Also from your Cross, as from hers, joy and life will germinate.Encouragement to Those Who Suffer
Courage, brother who weeps, sister who suffers, do not in vain pour out on the painful path of your life the mysterious seeds of joy, your tears, your pains. On your Cross, like that of Jesus, who is that of Mary Sorrowful and Weeping, there is strength, hope, salvation, victory, peace, freedom, joy, consolation, happiness.Our Lady of Tears is with you. The days of tears will end, the days of joy that will come, will have no end.O Mother of Tears, queen of heaven, Under your sacred mantle, we seek shelter. In the hours of pain, your presence refines The heavy burden, the friendly heart.In every drop that from your eyes falls, We see a sea of love and compassion. In the trials of life, to you we turn, there, Seeking in your tears, consolation.Mary, source of hope and light, Your pain, transformed into intercession, Leads us to your Son, Jesus, Eternal source of every redemption.In your tears, a river of grace flows,
Purify us, make us reborn.
Oh Mother of Sorrows, to you we turn,
In your loving gaze, we want to be lost.
May each of your tears be a seed
Of faith, hope, and charity in the heart.
Under your maternal protection, constantly,
Let us walk towards eternal salvation.
Our Lady of Tears, hear our prayer,
In this valley of tears, be our comfort and guide.
With your maternal hand, warm us,
Lead us to the safe harbor, to joy.
Amen.
Devotion to Mary as a comforter in suffering is deepened in the document Marialis Cultus by Paul VI, which values Mary as a model of surrender and hope.
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