Saint Lucia (and her young cousins) would escape to a well on Lucia’s family’s property, and they would cry and cry as they offered the sacrifice to Our Lord for poor sinners…
When the little children of Fatima – Saints Lucia, Francesco and Jacinta – offered sacrifices for sinners, it really hurt them.
Sometimes, they would cry – and cry bitterly – at the amount that those sacrifices hurt.
For example, Saint Lucia’s mother was very distressed at the idea that her daughter was leading others astray by lying about having received visions of the Blessed Virgin. She was very worried about Saint Lucia’s immortal soul, should be prove herself to be a proud liar who invented the story in order to gain attention for herself. Because of this distress and because of her overwhelming concern for the soul of her youngest child, Saint Lucia’s mother very often beat her in punishment for this so-called lie or to make her confess to lying. She would. Beat the child with a broomstick. And, when priests and government officials called the child in for questioning, her mother sent her alone to answer to them because she was not concerned about whether her child was punished for a crime, she was only concerned that her child might be damning herself to hell for lying and leading others astray...
The younger two children often cried due to discomfort caused by their various forms of fasting and abstinence (they often gave away their lunch and refused to drink water all day in the heat as a sacrifice to God). The three children wore a course rope around their waists under their clothes as a sacrifice for poor sinners and the Blessed Virgin did not prevent them from doing that (though it drew blood and was very uncomfortable for them) though she did ask them to remove the rope at night when they went to sleep.
When these terrible injustices occurred and when they made their sacrifices – because the children really were not lying at all – Saint Lucia (and her young cousins) would escape to a well on Lucia’s family’s property, and they would cry and cry as they offered the sacrifice to Our Lord for poor sinners (as they were wont to call them).
When Saint Therese of Lisieux sacrificed her hair by having it cut off when she was a novitiate, she also cried.
And I have been reflecting on these tears.
You see, for a very long time I thought that if I offered a sacrifice to God it would have to be with a dry face. I thought the sacrifice would only count if I did not cry. But now – considering the sacrifices of these Saints – it occurs to me that if a sacrifice hurts enough, it is okay to cry some tears. And I could even follow the example of the little shepherd children of Fatima and share those tears and that heartbreak with my Beloved. After all, He who knows all things, knows how much a sacrifice can cost me…
And He weeps with me, even as He sees those sacrifices for poor sinners – poor poor sinners like me…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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