Stabat Mater Dolorosa—Weep Over Sin
Just recently, I read Ali Baba and the Forty thieves for my children . In this story, the wife of Ali Baba’s (unfortunate) brother and her servant girls lament and cry by his corpse, retrieved by Ali Baba from the thieves’ cave. Their lament announces to everyone the death of Ali Baba’s brother. This is just one of many examples of weeping done not only because of a spontaneous desire but with a specific and sometimes direct ritual meaning. And whenever there is a ritual, behind it lies the desire to express a deeper human reality. The ritual, the task, vocation or place, is there to encompass the entire human being when she (the soul) comes in contact with a reality beyond ordinary expression. Or in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gandalf, “not all tears are an evil…” The task of lamenting is one forgotten in the Western world, along with most meaningful rituals. .... In sharp contrast to this “liberated human” stands the Mother, weeping beneath the Cross... ...