What are tears of grace? I wondered.

Pink Horizon street butterflies

NW 13th and Hudson | Looking West |OKC

There were four of us huddled together in the same bed. Two of us were crying and two of us were not.

Someone said, “Don’t Cry.” But, someone else said, “Don’t Stop.” 

And, then: “Let them cry their tears of grace.”

I wondered what it meant and then I found:

“Let us ask the Lord to give us the grace of tears – it is a beautiful grace. And ask for the grace to be able to say with our lives, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ not because He appeared to me, but because I saw Him with my heart.” –Pope Francis, 2014

***

I love the faint pink on this horizon. I shot this photo at sunset on Oklahoma City’s NW 13th Street. I love Midtown on the weekends. All the people who work in and around downtown have gone home and I’m free to roam with my camera. I’m free to think about tears of grace. My son said that. My sweet and wonderful and perfect boy. I love him so much.

***

St. Augustine’s Prayer for the Gift of Tears

I beseech Thee, O Good Jesus, through these most blessed tears, and through all Thy tenderness, by which Thou didst wondrously come to our aid who were lost, grant me this grace of tears my soul so longs for, and now begs of Thee.  For without Thy gift of it I cannot possess it…

By Thy Holy Spirit Who softens the hard hearts of sinners, and moves them to tears, grant me the grace of tears, as Thou didst grant it to my fathers, in whose steps I should follow: that I may bewail my whole life, as they bewailed themselves by day and night.  By their prayers and merits who have pleased Thee, and most faithfully served Thee, have mercy on me Thy most pitiful and unworthy servant, and grant me the gift of tears.  Water me from above, and water me from below, that day and night tears may be my bread.  May I become in Thy sight, O my God, a sacrifice, rich and full of marrow, through the fires of Thy compunction.  May I be wholly consumed on the altar of my own heart

Gen X Blog Jennifer Chronicles

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