Preces cum Flétibus

That is: prayers with tears: preces cum fletibus

It is no surprise that the Lenten hymn Audi, benígne Cónditor combines ‘prayers and tears’ but this  combination is found in many Latin hymns throughout the year. “Tears dissolve guilt” (Aeterne rerum conditor). Prudentius writes of prayers joined to singing (Nox et tenebrae et nublia). “Hear our prayers with tears” ( Lucis creator optime). “Our evil deeds are diluted by tears” (Telluris ingens conditor).

St. Augustine, however, makes note of the moral ambiguity of tears. When he was an infant, he used tears as a weapon: “I would take my revenge on them by bursting into tears” (conf. 1.6.8). The encounter with the grace of conversion culminated in “a heavy rain of tears” (conf. 8.12.28). Tears could also be a response to beauty: “I wept the more abundantly, later on, when your hymns were sung …” (conf. 9.7.16).

William of Tocco, one of the earliest biographer of St. Thomas Aquinas, reported that he often saw St. Thomas weeping, when he was singing the psalm verse during Compline in Lent: “Do not reject us in old age, when my strength is failing,” enraptured and consumed in piety, tears streaming down his face that seemed to be bursting forth from the eyes of the pious soul.” (David Berger Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy pp. 14-15).

St. Thomas in fact explains ‘tears’ in the Article: Whether pain or sorrow is assuaged by tears? (ST I IIae 38.2):

Tears and groans naturally assuage sorrow: and this for two reasons. First, because a hurtful thing hurts yet more if we keep it shut up, because the soul is more intent on it: whereas if it be allowed to escape, the soul's intention is dispersed as it were on outward things, so that the inward sorrow is lessened. This is why men, burdened with sorrow, make outward show of their sorrow, by tears or groans or even by words, their sorrow is assuaged. Secondly, because an action, that befits a man according to his actual disposition, is always pleasant to him. Now tears and groans are actions befitting a man who is in sorrow or pain; and consequently they become pleasant to him. Since then, as stated above (Article 1), every pleasure assuages sorrow or pain somewhat, it follows that sorrow is assuaged by weeping and groans.

The tradition insists that ‘tears’ are a gift and as such it cannot be acquired on demand.  It is also something, like any gift, which can be misused. Further, it is a gift we should not refuse. When it comes, if it comes, it deepens, much like song, our prayers.