In his book The Tears of Things, Father Richard Rohr describes the path of tears as one that leads to sympathy with suffering and communion with reality.
Are we the only animal that cries and sheds tears as an emotional response? It seems so, but what function do they serve for us? Jesus says we should be happy if we can weep (Luke 6:21), but why? Tears seem to appear in situations of sadness, happiness, awe, and fear—and usually come unbidden. What is their free message to us and to those who observe them? Has humanity gotten the message yet? Whatever it is, it’s surely a message too deep for words.
In the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid (line 462), the hero Aeneas gazes at a mural depicting a battle of the Trojan War and the deaths of his friends and countrymen. He’s so moved with sorrow at the tragedy of it all that he speaks of “the tears of things” (lacrimae rerum). As Seamus Heaney translates it, “There are tears at the heart of things”—at the heart of our human experience. [1] Only tears can move both Aeneas and us beyond our deserved and paralyzing anger at evil, death, and injustice without losing the deep legitimacy of that anger.
This phrase “the tears of things” has continued to be quoted and requoted in many contexts over centuries. We find it on war memorials, in poetry, in the music of Franz Liszt, and in Pope Francis’ recent encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti. (I myself remember it because of a haggard, bent-over Latin teacher who would often enter the classroom moaning “Lacrimae rerum” several times before he began quizzing us.)
Because the phrase has no prepositions in Latin, it allows two meanings at the same time: Virgil seems to be saying that there are both “tears in things” and “tears for things.” And each of these tears leads to the other. Though translators often feel compelled to choose one or the other meaning, I believe the poet implies it is both.
There’s an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking. This “way of tears,” and the deep vulnerability that it expresses, is opposed to our normal ways of seeking control through willpower, commandment, force, retribution, and violence. Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of judgmentalism. It’s hard to be on the attack when you are weeping.
Prophets and mystics recognize what most of us do not—that all things have tears and all things deserve tears. The sympathy that wells up when we weep can be life changing, too, drawing us out of ourselves and into communion with those around us.
References:
[1] Seamus Heaney, shared in a 2008 essay broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as part of the Greek and Latin Voices series.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (Convergent, 2025), 96, 3–4.
Image credit and inspiration: Noé Barnett, Untitled (detail), 2024, oil paint, Albuquerque. Click here to enlarge image. A painted image from art by Noé Barnett, inspired by Richard Rohr’s book The Tears of Things, a hand holds a single tear gently and with great care.
Story from Our Community:
I was a grateful member of Alanon for many years. I will never forget the day my sponsor asked me to tell my story for the group. I nearly burst into tears because no one had invited me to share my story so completely before. In my vulnerability, I feared that telling my story so openly might diminish the respect others had for me somehow—but it didn’t. I learned that all the stories we shared in our Alanon group transcended socioeconomics, gender, and race. The act of sharing our stories with each other elevated us beyond ourselves toward a Higher Power that knows and honors all humanity’s stories.
—Eileen H.
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