Mother's Tears

We are a modest country parish, but we made a big statement yesterday on the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents.

Before morning Mass, our small daily Mass group (a couple dozen hardy souls) gathered outside the church at a rock commemorating the victims of abortion. Our priest wanted to remember not only the Holy Innocents of scripture* on their feast day, but the innocent souls that are killed every day through the modern horror of abortion.

It had been raining that morning, a light fine mist, but I was pleased that it stopped prior to our little service. Our candles, all lit with fire from the Christ candle in the center of the Advent wreath, flickered in our hands with no raindrops to douse their flames. Our priest led us in prayer, and with bowed heads, we prayed for aborted babies, for their mothers and fathers, and for any who might be contemplating aborting their unborn child. It was emotional and meaningful.

And then... something beautiful happened.

We had prayed the Lord's Prayer together, and we were about to ask for our Blessed Mother's intercession. Our priest said, "We ask the intercession of Mother Mary who sheds a tear for every child denied life. And so we pray...Hail Mary...."

At that moment, at that VERY moment, raindrops began to fall ever so gently from the sky. Our priest said that when the words about Mary's tears left his lips, light drops hit his face. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I prefer to believe it was our gracious Mother shedding tears from Heaven in solidarity and sadness.

May her tears and our prayers heal our land - our world - so the death of the innocents will be no more.

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*On the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, the Catholic Church remembers the children killed by King Herod's hand as recorded in the book of St. Matthew 2:16-18: "When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.'"