Dominus Flevit (Latin for “the Lord wept”)

Teardrop-shaped Church of Dominus Flevit

T

he term reverentia appears 13 times in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. This is the Latin for the Ignatian virtue of reverence. The simplest meaning of reverence is respect. It appears several times not only in the Spiritual Exercises but also in the Spiritual journal of St Ignatius. The Spanish word for reverence is “acatamiento.” Ignatius would put the virtue of reverence almost synonymously with respect. The two go together in Ignatian Spirituality.

Ignatian reverence refers to our overall attitude of mindful presence and perceptiveness to the sacred. For Ignatius, our best response to the sacred is reverence and when we enter into the Spiritual Exercises for example 30 days we are entering into the holy ground. We're going into sacred space and we move from the secular world to the sacred with reverence and respect.

Given this virtue of reverence Saint Peter Canisius one of the earlier Jesuits shares how Ignatius himself pursued and concretized this virtue of reverence in his life he says Ignatius would regularly go for his early morning prayer on the roof of the Jesuit Generalate in Rome and there in the roof area he would stand and slowly take off his hat and without moving he would fix his gaze on the heavens for some time then sinking going down to his knees he would make a lovely gesture of reverence and respect to God and after that, he would sit on a bench to rest his weak sickly body because at that time he was already quite sickly and there he was head uncovered tears trickling drop by drop in such sweetness and silence that no sob no sigh no noise no movement of the body was noticed he was just very still gazing at the heavens. This is what we mean by Ignatian reverence and that is one of the attitudes a retreatant may take or should take as he or she enters into a long retreat hopefully with the assistance of the retreat guide.

In St Ignatius’s Autobiography which was written towards the end of his life, he has such a growing devotion to easily finding God in all things. “At whatever time or hour he wanted to find God, he found him” (Autobiography 99). He was always crying, which was a sign that he was in great consolation, it means those tears are tears of consolation. Tears were signs of the sacred taking place in his interiority.

Secondly, tears are elicited also not only because of consolation, but because of desolation. This is what we see happening in the gospel, our Lord himself weeps out of great desolation over the city of Jerusalem. If you go to Jerusalem there is the so-called Wailing Wall, which dates from about the 2nd century BCE. The authenticity of this Wall (160 feet long and 60 feet high) has been confirmed by tradition, history, and archaeological research. The wall is the remnant of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was a place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred to the Jewish people as this was the site of the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587–586 BCE, and the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Texts explaining the survival of the wall vary; one suggests that God saved this fragment for the Jewish people whom God has chosen, while another holds that the Roman Emperor Titus left it as a painful reminder of the defeat and subjugation of Judea. Jesus wept for Jerusalem already (13.34-35), and he weeps over Jerusalem once as he arrives and again as he leaves the city on the way to his execution (23.28-31). Jesus prays what is called the prayers of lamentation which is composed entirely of phrases from the prophets of old. There is another time instance, when Jesus wept, which was when his best friend Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary died.

The third and last point, is a question, When was your last good cry? We must be comfortable with shedding tears yes! "To weep is to make less the depth of grief," Shakespeare tells us in one of his plays. Even more poignantly, St Teresa of Calcutta says, "More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones." Let us not wait when we are only in consolations, but also in desolations because the two go together. I would like to use one beautiful piece of creation that we are blessed to look upon each night—the moon, which is as steady and unwavering as the sun. The moon serves as a perfect mirror image for consolations. For one, it shines not its own light. Also, the moon is always present and moving together with our earth around the sun. Sometimes it is hidden only to come out again at another time. In the same way, consolation is always around the corner. Like the moon, it does not have a light of its own except that which shines from the Creator. We just need to be more discerning when it is dark because this is often the window of opportunity used by the enemy to deceive. This is why in every discernment process, it is very important to attach ourselves to the source of all consolation, the Heart of Jesus, we need to cultivate holy indifference towards His consolations.

The moon reflects light in the darkness following God's command from the beginning, "Let there be light." See the moon as God's way of continuously creating you. Anytime you catch a glimpse of the moon, take that moment to thank God for the little graces. When you glance up at it, say, "The Lord bless us and watch over us; the Lord, make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us; the Lord look kindly on us and give us peace."

The moon has often been seen as a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ever the apple of the Father's eye. Without the light of her own, she reflects the light of Jesus Christ which makes her a most formidable intercessor in times of darkness. Mary is the “ladder” that joins heaven and earth without deception. Like the moon, she is the brightest, closest, and the easiest path between the human heart to God's. In the words of the great English poet William Wordsworth, Mary is "our tainted human nature's solitary boast." But Mary also shed tears not only when she saw her Son’s passion and death, she was occasionally in tears of consolation and yes also desolation. But consolation or desolation, tears are a sure sign of God’s closeness nonetheless. Let me end with Psalm 126:2-6.

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us;

We are joyful.

Restore our fortunes, LORD,

As the streams in the South.

Those who sow in tears shall harvest with joyful shouting.

One who goes here and there weeping, carrying his bag of seed,

Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Amen.

Fr JM Manzano SJ