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Tears are natural to fallen human nature. Before the fall, it did not know tears - it knew only the purest pleasure of heavenly bliss. It has lost this bliss: tears are left to it, as an expression of sympathy for bliss, as evidence of a fall, as evidence of a state under the wrath of an angry Deity, as a hope to someday return bliss. This hope is true: because sympathy for bliss is not erased from nature. This hope is true: because the lament for the loss of heavenly bliss cannot be satisfied by any temporary satisfaction; it, remaining unsatisfied, expects satisfaction, proclaims the existence of satisfaction. Consolation lives mysteriously in tears and joy in crying. A person, no matter what his earthly well-being, no matter what height he stands, no matter how abundantly he floats, meets and experiences moments, hours and days in which he needs the consolation delivered by tears, but does not find consolation in any other consolation. Each of us only enters the country of our exile and languor, the country of suffering and crying, as we mark this entry, the beginning of our existence, with a lamentable cry. “Blessed is the man, for he has his intercession with You,” marked by tears during his prayer! These are the invisible, spiritual “ascents in your heart, passing through the vale of tears - earthly life, which You have appointed for repentance: for the blessing will be given to us by laying down the law” weeping and tears. Those who cleanse themselves with weeping and tears, “will go from strength to strength, and the God of gods will appear in Zion” - in the human spirit, prepared to accept God by true repentance (Ps. 84:6-8). “Those who sow with tears will reap with joy.” Those who “walk” the path of earthly life, who “walk” along the narrow and sorrowful path, “and weep, throwing away their seeds, will come with joy, taking hold of their hands” (Ps. 125:5-6). Tears, as a property of fallen nature, are infected with the disease of the fall, like all other properties. Some people are especially prone to tears by nature and shed tears at every opportunity: such tears are called natural. There are also sinful tears. Sinful tears are tears shed for sinful reasons. Such tears are shed in abundance and with particular ease by people devoted to voluptuousness; Tears similar to the tears of voluptuous people are shed by those in self-delusion and delusion; Tears flow abundantly from vanity, hypocrisy, pretense, and man-pleasing. Finally, their anger sheds: when it is deprived of the opportunity to commit an atrocity, to shed human blood, then it sheds tears. These were the tears of Nero, in whom modern Christians, due to his cruelty and hatred of Christianity, thought to see the Antichrist 103. Natural tears include tears of grief; when grief has a sinful character, then the tears of grief become tears of sin. Both natural and sinful tears, immediately upon their appearance, are commanded by the Holy Fathers to change them to those pleasing to God, that is, to change the motivation of the tears: to bring to mind our sins, the inevitable and unknown death, the judgment of God, and to cry for these reasons 104. Wonderful thing! those who, by natural inclination, shed streams of effortless, meaningless and fruitless tears, as well as those who shed them for sinful motives, when they want to cry in a godly manner, suddenly see extraordinary dryness in themselves, and cannot get a single tear drop from their eyes. From this we learn that tears of fear of God and repentance are the gift of God, that in order to receive them we must take care, firstly, to acquire their cause. The reason for tears is vision and consciousness of one’s sinfulness. “My eyes have seen the issue of the waters,” says the holy prophet David, “but I have not kept Your law” (Ps. 119:136). The cause of tears is poverty of spirit: being itself bliss, it gives birth to another bliss - crying (Matthew 5:3-4), nourishes, supports, strengthens it. “Weeping does not come from tears, but tears from crying,” said St. John the Prophet. If someone, being in the midst of brotherhood, cuts off his own will and does not pay attention to the sins of others, then he becomes weeping. Through this his thoughts gather, and, gathering in this way, they give birth to sorrow (crying) for God in the heart, and sorrow gives birth to tears” 105. Tears, as a gift of God, serve as a sign of God’s mercy: “Tears in prayer,” says Saint Isaac of Syria, “are a sign of God’s mercy, which the soul has received through its repentance, and that it has been accepted and has begun to enter the field of purity through tears. If thoughts do not turn away from transitory objects, if they do not reject hopes for this world; if contempt for him is not aroused in them, and they do not begin to prepare instructions for their outcome; if thoughts about objects belonging to the future age do not begin to act in the soul, then the eyes will not be able to produce tears” 106. He who has acquired the sight of his sinfulness, who has acquired the fear of God, who has acquired the feeling of repentance and crying, needs to ask God for the gift of tears through diligent prayer. So Ashan, the daughter of Caleb, having been given in marriage and having received a plot of land as a dowry, when she sat on a donkey to go to her husband’s house, with groaning and crying she began to ask her father to add another plot abounding with water to the plot given to her. “Thou hast given me to the southern (dry) land, that thou mayest give me a source of water” (Judges 1:15). Caleb granted his daughter's wish. The Holy Fathers, by the face of Askhani, mean a soul sitting, as if on a donkey, on the dumb desires of the flesh. The dry earth depicts action under the guidance of the fear of God, and that Ashan began to ask for sources of water with groaning and crying, this signifies the extreme need for tears for every ascetic who must ask with sighs and heartache for the gift of tears from God 107 . When praying for the gift of tears, it is necessary to make your own effort to produce them. One’s own effort or labor can precede the outpouring of tears and accompany this outpouring. The work that precedes tears consists in prudent abstinence from food and drink, in prudent vigil, in non-covetousness, in diverting attention from everything around us, in concentrating it on ourselves. Saint John of the Climacus said in his Sermon on Lamentation: “Repentance is the voluntary deprivation of oneself of all bodily consolation” 108 . Saint David describes the situation of the mourner as follows: “I was wounded like grass, and my heart failed, as if I forgot to take my bread. Because of the voice of my groaning my bone cleaves to my flesh. We became like a tawny owl in the desert, like a nighttime corvid on a dive (ruin). Bdekh, and was like a special bird on this (roof) ... Ashes were eaten like bread, and my drink was dissolved with weeping” (Ps. 101: 5-8, 10). Without mortification for the world it is impossible to acquire weeping and tears: we acquire them as we mortify the world. – The work of actually crying and shedding tears consists of forcing oneself to them, in the generous patience of dryness and lack of rain, with which a blessed feat is sometimes cursed, after which the patient worker is always rewarded with an abundant outpouring of tears. Just as the earth, which has waited a long time for irrigation and finally received it in abundance, suddenly becomes covered with tender, bright greenery, so the heart, exhausted by dryness and then revived by tears, emits from itself a multitude of spiritual thoughts and sensations, adorned with the general color of humility. The practice of crying, being inseparable from the practice of prayer, requires the same conditions for success that prayer also needs. She needs patient, constant abiding in her: she also needs crying. She needs the fatigue of the body, produces exhaustion of the body: she produces this exhaustion and crying, needing in order to be born, weariness and fatigue of the body. “I am weary with my groaning,” says the great Worker of Lamentations, “I will wash my bed every night, I will wet my bed with my tears” (Ps. 6:7). Self-motivation and labor must be proportionate to bodily strength. The Monk Nil of Sorsky advises and pacifies weeping and tears. “This is the path of repentance and its fruit,” he says. “Whoever cries about every misfortune that comes to him and against every enemy thought before the goodness of God so that it helps him, will soon find peace if he prays in spiritual mind” 109. However, this Reverend, having advised us to be guided in doing those instructions that are in the books of St. John Climacus and St. Simeon the New Theologian, gives a warning, borrowing it from St. Isaac of Syria, so as not to lead a weak body into disorder by immeasurable compulsion. “Then,” he says, “it is useless to champion nature. When a weak body is forced to do things that exceed its strength, then darkness upon darkness is inflicted on the soul, and it is thrown into confusion” 110. However, even with a weak physique and health, some coercion, commensurate with one’s strength, is necessary. This proportionality can easily be seen from a few experiments. The weak should bring themselves to weeping and tears with the most attentive prayer and try to acquire weeping in the spirit 111, and quiet tears flow, and heart disease is not so severe. Every spiritual activity, being actually a gift of God in us, certainly needs our compulsion to do it, because compulsion is an active revelation and evidence of our good will. Compulsion is especially necessary when, out of fallen nature or through the villainy of demons, any sinful desire or indignation arises in us: then it is necessary to pronounce the lamentable words of the prayer somewhat out loud. Material, mechanical, vocal, especially forced and violent crying does not correspond to the weak, as it shakes the body and produces painful languor and pain in it. These languor and illnesses are likened by the Fathers to the illnesses of a woman giving birth 112; their consequence is significant exhaustion even in strong ascetics. For monks with a strong constitution, it is possible and useful to have a more intense compulsion to cry and cry; For them, it is necessary, especially at the beginning of their feat, before they acquire the cry of the spirit, to pronounce the words of prayer in a mournful voice, so that the soul, which has fallen asleep in the sleep of death from the intoxication of sin, is aroused by the voice of crying and itself feels the feeling of crying. Thus did mighty David weep. “Roars from the groaning of my heart” (Ps. 37:9), he says about himself, “roars” like a lion, filling the desert with a cry in which both the expression of strength and the expression of sorrow are terrible. For public prayer and crying, solitude is necessary, at least in a cell: this activity does not take place among the brethren. From the biographies of the holy Fathers, it is clear that those of them who had the opportunity engaged in vocal crying, which was sometimes involuntarily heard beyond the walls of the cell, although they took care with all care that everything they did remained a secret, known to the one God. Just as the accumulation of gases in the air bursts into thunder during heavy rain, so the accumulation of the sensations of crying in the soul bursts into sobs with screams and copious tears. This happened to a monk, whose feat was described by Saint Isaac in his 10th Word. After thunder and rain, there is a special sweetening of the air: and the soul, having relieved its sadness by sobbing, cooled by tears, tastes special silence and peace, from which, as if fragrant from aromatic substances, the purest prayer arises and acts. – In general, it is useful to learn from the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers different methods of monastic work, test them, and choose for yourself the work that turns out to be most appropriate. Human beings are constructed in such a variety of ways, their abilities and qualities are so diverse, that the same activity or method, when used by several ascetics, acts in each of them with significant differences. For this reason, experience is necessary, as the Apostle advises: “Whenever you are tempted, hold back what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The gift of “crying” and “tears” is one of the greatest gifts of God. He is a gift that we essentially need for our salvation. The gifts of prophecy, clairvoyance, and miracles are signs of special pleasing to God and God's favor, and the gift of tenderness and tears is a sign of accepted or accepted repentance. “Sadness of thought is an honest gift from God; he who has it and keeps it as he should is like a man who has a shrine within himself. Bodily feats without the sadness of thought are like a body without a soul” 113. Tears shed for sins are at first bitter, shed during illness and languor of the spirit, which the spirit communicates to the body. Little by little, a consolation begins to be combined with tears, consisting of a special calmness, a feeling of meekness and humility; at the same time, the tears, in proportion and in accordance with the consolation provided, themselves change, lose much of their bitterness, flow out painlessly or with less illness. At first they are scarce and come rarely; then little by little they begin to come more often and become more plentiful. When the gift of tears is strengthened in us by God's mercy, then the internal struggle is tamed, thoughts subside, mental prayer or prayer of the spirit begins to operate in a special development, saturating and delighting the inner man. Then the veil of passions is removed from the mind, and the mysterious teaching of Christ is revealed to it. Then the tears turn from bitter to sweet. Then spiritual consolation lingers in the heart, which has nothing like it among earthly joys, and which is known only to those who practice prayerful crying and have the gift of tears 114. Then the Lord’s promise comes true: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Then the ascetic greets himself according to the inspiration and confirmation of the Holy Spirit: “God bless the babies: humble yourself and save me. Turn, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to you: for my soul has been taken away from death, my eyes from tears, and my nose from creeping” (Ps. 115:6-8). Then the ascetic, seeing the powerlessness of sinful thoughts and feelings over himself, which are in vain trying to subjugate him to their influence, boldly says to them: “Depart from me, all you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord heard my prayer, the Lord accepted my prayer” (Ps. 6:9-10). The Lamentation of the holy prophet Jeremiah picturesquely depicts the state of mind of a monk who saw the fall of human nature, not deceived by the seductions of the transitory world, but who completely fixed the gaze of his soul on this fall and gave himself up to deep crying in deep solitude 115. “And it came to pass,” says the Scripture, “that Israel was carried into captivity, and Jerusalem was laid waste, and Jeremiah the prophet sat down weeping, and wept with lamentation over Jerusalem” (Pl. 1). All benefits for Jerusalem have been exhausted, and all are already in vain: all that remains is mourning for her. The Prophet once spoke to him, spoke an incessantly prophetic word; now there is no one to hear this word; Not only are there no people, there are no buildings either; There are only ruins left: only sobs can be heard. No one understands these sobs, and there is no need to care that they are understandable to anyone. With them the Prophet expresses his inexpressibly grave grief; they are heard across the desert from the ruins; God listens to them from heaven. What a position the Prophet is! he is alone in the vast ruins of the city; he alone is alive among countless, dead signs and evidence of a past life; he alone is alive in the midst of the realm of death. As if alive, he gives a voice of grief over the loss of life; he calls on this life to return to the dwelling it left behind, to once again replace the terrible, unfeeling death. “How is it possible to have one city multiplied by people? become like a widow, multiplied among the nations, rule over countries, become a tribute” (Pl. 1:1). A prophet means the mind of a monk, enlightened by the Revealed teaching of God; the great city is all man created by God; city ​​residents - properties of soul and body; pagans are demons who were humiliated before man before his fall and became his rulers after his fall. The monk himself and all people are in a state of decline: he and all people are the subject of his lament. But the monk cries alone, because he alone, in the light of the Word of God, sees the fall of humanity; other people do not see him, do not take part in the crying, do not understand the crying, and consider the crying person to have lost his mind. The monk cries alone on behalf of himself and on behalf of all humanity, not being able to separate himself from humanity out of love for him and because of his kinship with him; the monk cries for himself and for all humanity; he mourns the fallen nature common to all. He cries alone on the insensible ruins, among scattered stones and lying in heaps: ruins and stones are an image of humanity stricken by insensibility, humanity that does not feel or understand its fall and eternal death, and does not care at all about them. The monk cries alone, and his cry is understandable to the only God. “Weeping in the night - all the time of his earthly life, and his tears fell on his cheeks, and there was no comfort for him from all those who loved him: all who were friends with him rejected him, and were enemies of him” (Pl. 1:2). In order to weep for God, one must withdraw from the world and people, die for the world and people, become lonely in heart and mind. “Leaving all worries will help you get closer to the city of silence; if you don’t account for yourself, you will inhabit him; “If you die for every person, then you will become the heir of the city and its treasures,” said the Great Barsanuphius to the monk, whom he was preparing for silence and hermitage in the tomb-cell, this beloved dwelling of prayerful lamentation 116. The Jews, who were in captivity and work with the Babylonians, represent arbitrary sorrows, that is, hardships and physical exploits to which a monk subjects himself for the purpose of repentance, as well as sorrows allowed to him by God's Providence for the cleansing of sins. The spiritual leader of exploits - lamentation - sends a message to them from the ruins of Jerusalem, where he is silent alone. In the message he announces to the captives, after an urgent period of time, liberation. There is a time for bitter crying, and there is a measure for the cup of sorrows, voluntary and involuntary. This weight and measure are determined by God 117, just as Saint David said: “Feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure” (Ps. 79:6), “for Thou hast laid down my tears before Thee” as a means of purification “in Thy promise” (Ps. 55:9) of pardon and salvation. There were days in which “my tears were my bread day and night” (Ps. 41:4); they were followed by days in which, according to the preceding “many of my illnesses in my heart, Thy consolations made my soul glad” (Ps. 93:19). “The captivity of Zion would never be returned to the Lord as a source of consolation. Then our lips will be filled with joy, and our tongue will be filled with joy” (Ps. 125:1-2). “Do not be afraid, my servant Jacob,” proclaims the inspired Jeremiah on behalf of God to the chosen people, who were allowed captivity in Babylon for their sins, “do not be afraid of Israel: for I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity: and Jacob will return, and will rest, and prosper” ( Jer.46:27). The sorrows and illnesses of repentance contain within them the seed of consolation and healing. This sacrament is revealed by crying to his disciple. - All monks who were cleansed of sins were cleansed by crying, and all those who achieved Christian perfection achieved it by crying. This work was especially developed among the numerous silent people of lower Egypt, in the desert of Scete, in Mount Nitria, in Kellia and in other secluded places. It transformed the faces and regiments of monks into the faces and regiments of Angels. When the founder of monastic residence in the Skete desert, the Venerable Macarius the Great, whom other desert dwellers recognized as the Father of the Fathers, reached a very old age, the monks of Mount Nitria, very close to Skete, asked him to visit them before his departure to the Lord. Macarius came to the mountain; many monks, silent on it, met him. They asked him for edification. Macarius, tearing up, said: “Brothers! Let's cry. Let our eyes shed tears until we depart to where our tears will burn our bodies.” Everyone began to cry, fell on their faces, and said: “Father! pray for us" 118. From his gift of tears, the Holy Teacher of the holy ancient monks pronounced a brief teaching on tears, combining in it all the teaching about monastic life. The listeners, by the manifestation of their gift of tears, expressed that they understood the meaning and vastness of the teaching. There was no need for many words here. The gift of tears - this overshadowing of God's grace - most often visits ascetics during attentive prayer, being its usual fruit; to others it comes during reading; others during any work. This is how the Monk Kirill of Beloezersky came to tears while studying in the monastery kitchen. Looking at the material fire, he remembered the unquenchable fire of eternal torment and shed tears. Kirill, believing that in silence his tenderness would intensify and his tears would multiply, wanted to retire to his cell. According to God, circumstances brought him what he wanted, and so what? With the elimination of the cause that aroused tenderness and tears, the tears became scarce, and Kirill asked the abbot to return him to the fire of the monastery kitchen 119. The Holy Fathers command to remain in the work in which tears come: because tears are fruit, and the goal of monastic life is to achieve fruit by the means by which it is pleasing to God to deliver fruit. – The Monk Theodore of Enata said that “he knew a monk who was silent in his cell and whose handicraft was weaving ropes. When this monk sat and wove a rope, engaged in mental prayer, tears came to him. Then he got up to pray; but at the same time the tears stopped. The brother sat down and began to work on the rope, concentrating his thoughts, and the tears came again. Likewise, when he sat and read, tears came. He stood up to pray, and the tears immediately stopped. As soon as he started reading the book again, the tears returned.” Regarding this, the Reverend said: “The saying of the Holy Fathers is true that crying is a teacher. He teaches every person what is useful for him 120.” The Monk Theodore of Enata used to say: “Every sin that a man commits is, except the body: but the fornicator sins in his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18), because from the body filth flows out, desecrating it: so is every virtue “except the body,” and he who weeps daily cleanses the body too: because the tear flowing from above washes the body of impurities him" 121. “A truly penitent recognizes,” according to Saint John Climacus, “every day on which he did not cry as lost to himself, even if during it he did something good” 122. “No matter how exalted our life may be, if we have not acquired a contrite heart, then this life is feigned and fruitless. It is proper, truly proper, for those who have become defiled after the bath of rebirth (after holy baptism) to cleanse their hands with the constant fire of the heart and the mercy of God” 123. “We will not be accused, O friends, at the departure of our soul from the body, that we were not miracle workers, were not theologians, did not have spiritual visions; but we will certainly give God an answer for not weeping incessantly” 124, i.e. We did not remain in constant saving sorrow about our sins and sinfulness. Although crying almost always ends in more or less profuse tears; but some ascetics - as can be seen from the consolation that the Holy Fathers uttered for them - languish, either throughout their entire ascetic endeavor, or for a considerable time, under the yoke of crying, not receiving tears for consolation and cooling. Let them know that the essence of repentance lies in humility and contrition of our spirit (Ps. 50:19), when the spirit mourns because of humility. Crying of the spirit, with a lack of bodily strength to express through bodily deeds and actions the repentance acting in the soul, replaces all bodily deeds and actions, and between them, tears 125. Amen. We read this opinion in the dialogues of Severus Sulpicius, placed in the Galland library and in the complete course of Patrology. Ladder. Homily 7. Venerable Nil of Sorsky. Word 8. St. Barsanuphius and John answer 282. Venerable Nilus of Sorsky. Word 8. The Monk Nilus of Sora in Homily 2 calls prayer and crying of the spirit “reasonable crying and weeping.” Ladder. Word 7, ch. 60. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 89. Venerable Macarius the Great. Sermon IV, ch. 19. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word LXV. Alphabetical Patericon and Memorable Legends, ch. XXXIII. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 59. – Ladder. Word 7. – Venerable Nil of Sorsky. Word 8. You might be interested in: