GRIEF

A crocodile has tear glands, but a crocodile never shed tears; a hyena has its open mouth, but a hyena never laughs. The tear ducts in the animals are for the sake of lubricating the eyeballs, not for expressing griefs. Beasts are divided from man by tears and laughters. Both have to do with the soul rather than the body.

A dictionary defines a tear as "a drop of limpid fluid, secreted by the lacrimal gland, appearing in or flowing from the eye, chiefly as a result of emotion, especially grief."

A chemist would define tear as a solution of sodium chloride and calcium.

A stoic would say that tear is a sign of weakness, for in the face of grief one should bite his teeth and bear it.

An epicurean would say: "forget the grief, man was made to eat, drink and be merry."

Just as clouds portend the rain, so too does grief issue in tears. The laboratory is the heart; they are merely the external and visible sign of something deeper and invisible, a kind of sublimation of woe, the predication of a grief, the dilatation of a loss which only the mind can conceive. Behind every tear is an idea.

The tears of an infant, which are hotter than the tears shed later on in life, come from the broken toy, the pang of hunger, or the thwarted egotism which the child has not yet learned to control.

The tears of parting, as when Ephesians wept at the departure of Paul, "grieving over what he had said about never seeing his face again."

The tears of lovers when, having given his heart away, he finds that it is not returned with garnished love, but jilted and broken.

The tears of the mother who sees a young life shipwrecked no sooner than it is launched on the sea of life, or else later or having a wayward son and wishing that the tears could have been shed earlier when an innocent life took its leave and departed.

The tears of penitent, like Peter, who so wept for having denied our Lord that his cheeks were furrowed with the tracks of grief and contrition.

Tears were consecrated and made sacred when Christ, the God-man, wept three times: once over death, in the case of Lazarus; once over the decay of civilization, when he wept over Jerusalem; and once for the sins of man as He summoned the olive roots of Gethsemane with tears of blood.

In contrast to his compassionate love for the ills and woes of men which sin had brough, the ancient poet could fix no worse epithet on Pluto than: "He was a person who could not weep."

Tears are not without value, provided one sees a purpose beyond their shedding. As the morning rose is sweetest when embalmed with dew, so love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.

Many a person sees God through tears more often than in the sunlight; in fact, tears may leave the vision of the eyes clear for stars. Sweetness so sad, and sadness so sweet.

But not only do tears make hearts realize the happiness for which we yearn is not here; they make us look beyond to another world where every tear shall be wiped away when"He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away.

But there is yet another value to tears in that they make us more sympathetic to the griefs and pain of others. In sorrow, one should never go to a person who has not wept, nor in anxiety and worry, should one ever consult a man who has not denied himself. Only those who have passed through the crucible of grief know how ot make a rainbow appear in a tear.

Why is it that children, when they have a grief will run to a mother rather than to the father? It is because the mother knows the trouble better than the father; she has companioned more with pain, has more often passed through its cycles, and in giving birth has gone to the very edge of death.

That is why He who promises to wipe away all tears is the One down whose cheeks and body flowed those sacrament of compassion, those tokens of love which make Him the High Priest who can have compassion for our griefs.