Memra 18: On the Tears of Prayer

Memra 18: On the Tears of Prayer Understand then, my son, what the Father says. There are tears that come from sorrow, and there are tears that come from joy, as the Lord said: "You shall weep and lament and cover yourselves, and the world shall rejoice." But after the time of your tears, they shall be turned to joy. For there is a man who weeps because of his sins and does well, as it is written: "Sorrow for God is the repentance of the soul that brings life." And there is a man who has overcome sin, and sins have passed from him, and he has done good deeds, and he weeps in joy because of the love of his Lord, who has done great kindness with them and saved them from the servitude of death and made them free sons, because they humbled themselves and kept his commandments. As David said: "This is the day that the Lord made; rejoice and be glad in it." "O Lord, my Savior; O Lord, my Redeemer; rejoice and be glad on this day of my salvation." And when a person is freed from the servitude of death, he serves the Lord in joy and not in sorrow, as David distinguished: "They served the Lord in joy and bowed before him in praise.

And he said: "Work for the Lord with fear, and hold fast to His covenant with trembling, and seek the Son without anger, and walk in His path, because if His anger is kindled a little, it burns all the wicked. But blessed are those who rely on Him from this world, and He saves them, and they escape from Him and are perfected in the love of our Lord Jesus, and they are praised with Him on His great and awesome day." Concerning tears, then, I said: There is a man who weeps for his companion because he loves him and is far from his presence. If, then, a man is far from his companion, he weeps for him, either because of his love or because of his grief. But when a man sees his beloved, he weeps before him, and streams of his tears fall upon his face, and every man who is near him sees him. Is it not known to every man that these are tears of joy? For when he sees his beloved whom he did not expect to see, he weeps and streams of tears flow, and he is amazed? Thus also a man who sins and is far from our Lord and from His righteousness weeps in grief, like a man who is far from his companion and grieves for him and weeps. They also grieve because of their sins, for they fear the judgment of our Lord and weep so that He may have mercy on them and forgive them, God. And if they pass from their sins and become righteous, they draw near to our Lord, and their tears become tears of joy.

And when you are without sins and are being delivered from sin, you weep before the Lord with joy, like a man who sees his beloved whom he did not expect to see, and falls upon his neck and weeps for him with sighs and tears of joy. Thus it is necessary for you to hasten to be without sins and to beseech the Lord to deliver you from sin, as Paul said: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death, except the grace of God, which is in the Lord Jesus Christ?" Therefore, leave aside everything that is visible, for it is transitory, and pass from outward sins, and when you have cut off all your visible sins, stand in the arena against the sin that dwells within you, which are those evil thoughts in which sin lurks in the heart, and with strength run to the arena that is set for you, and make the arena of prayer, just as the Lord did before us and showed that with a powerful groan and many tears, Jesus offered a petition to the one who delivers him from death. And he was heard and it was accomplished. For you, then, the Lord teaches these things: that when you are without visible sins, you should approach the arena of prayer, just as the Lord said and just as he did. Paul said to the brothers in the Lord that Epaphras makes an arena for you in his prayer.

This is the one who cries out mightily and is distressed in prayer, and whose weeping was like streams of blood, and who shed many tears—to show you that when you are without sins, with external faults and manifest transgressions, you offer petition and prayer. But when you are distressed in prayer, you shed tears like him who shed them, and you cry out mightily like him who cried out. You are not yet delivered from the sin that dwells in the heart, nor from the evil thoughts that are conceived within you. For it is not fitting for men who are in Christ to raise their hands in every place and in every moment, without anger and without evil thoughts, and to shed tears in their love for the Lord and in their compassion for his sake. When will they go and see him face to face? As it is written: “Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they shall see God.” In this world, as Paul said: “As in a mirror, through the eyes of your hearts you see the Lord.” And in that world, face to face.

Therefore, the heart is not purified unless it uproots from itself hidden sin, and eradicates from itself the evil thoughts that are concealed within it and hidden in it, by the power of the sin that dwells in it. And sin is not uprooted from the heart, nor are its evil thoughts and their fruits brought to an end, unless you pray as my Lord and all his heralds prayed. When you pray to the Lord with your heart, rejoice with your lips outwardly, and inwardly you rejoice. When your heart is not held back by sin, and when your face is revealed before my Lord, you fulfill all his commandments. You rejoice, then, as David said: "My heart rejoices in you, O Lord, and in those who fear your name; and I confess to you, my Lord and my God, with all my heart, and I will praise your name forever, because your grace is abundant upon me, and you have saved my soul from the lower Sheol." See, then, how our God saved our fathers from the hand of Sheol, and how their heart rejoiced in the Lord and in those who fear his name, as Mary said: "I magnify myself to the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in my life-giving God," who looked upon the humility of his handmaid. See, then, how she rejoiced in her spirit inwardly, and was glad in her thought that she had found grace and mercy before the Lord. Therefore, be a lawgiver to yourself, and run after perfection.

And when it hears the word of truth and of mercy, it becomes good earth and puts forth shoots and strikes root in itself and bears fruit and gives fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. Let it not be earth of thorns, that it might choke the seed of truth and be cut off from life on that day of the Lord of the abyss; and let it not be the earth of the path of evil, which gives no rest, that the good seed might be stored in it, but a wind comes and snatches it away and it is not known. Thus let it not be a hard heart, that it might not receive the word of life, that it might not strike root in it, and that evil might not snatch the good seed from the earth, and that its thought might not be far from knowledge, like barren earth that sees its seed and does not allow it to sprout in the sun. It will be arranged and give fruit without measure, when those who do its will, the receiver and fulfiller of the Lord, sprout in the waters, in the new sun of righteousness, and the heart sees the sun of mercy of healing upon its rocks. What then, when it hears the word that calls it to the ways of the Lord and of his preachers, and the heart comes and is completed: let it be a law to itself, and let it be like them and say: Why am I not like them, because they were like me? And let it hear Paul when he says that everything that is seen is vanity, and like dung he considered all the advantage that remains here, and it does not accompany me to that world of truth and glory.

Be not like me, for I also was like you. See, then, that you may be willing to be like Paul. The end of Memra 18: On the Tears of Prayer and their interpretation.