The days have come, and we are together again. How quickly time passes, and unseen passages become visible once more.

He keeps us company, shares his beautiful music, sets my humble words to music, and takes care of the sound. So now you can hear these few things we say clearly, wherever you are in the world. I send you my greetings. Radio truly is a wonderful gift from God, especially Piraiki Ekklisia. When you think about where this station can be heard, the answer is one word: everywhere.

Wherever there is internet access or a satellite connection, people can listen to Piraiki Ekklisia across the world. We receive letters, emails, and phone calls from places you would never imagine, unfamiliar places I have never visited and probably never will. It moves me to think that, as I sit here making this program, the sound travels so far and enters your heart. And from your heart it travels farther still, because your heart has depth. This is more than hearing with your ears, more than a passing touch upon the soul. God willing, what we say will

go deeper into your soul. It will find its way into the depths, so that something profound may happen: a change, a transformation. And I thank God that through this program He has given me so many dear people and friends.

We keep each other company. We get to know each other, we talk, and though we were strangers, we feel as if we know one another. People write to me whom I may never meet in this life because they live so far away and never come to Greece. They tell me plainly, “I write to you as if I know you, because I feel as if you know me too.” And I answer that when someone tries to understand his own condition, his own experiences, his own soul,

he comes to understand some other people who are like him.

That is how we all are, because as human beings we go through much the same things. We all face the same basic struggles: the feeling that we have been wronged, pain, problems, illness, loneliness, our passions, our sins, our mistakes, our sorrows, and also our beautiful moments. That is why we feel close and share a path in the spiritual life. Many people say this program moves them. One young woman wrote to me—and, as you can tell, there are many messages. I do not read letters and emails aloud on the program. Perhaps one day I will devote some programs to listeners’ questions. For now, I mention things I remember. She told me, “There is not a single program I listen to without crying,

and without being moved. There is not a single program I listen to in which you do not say something that concerns me.” And I have answered you that of course I will say something that concerns you, since you yourself tell me these things. I do not make these programs on my own. I read what you tell me and think about it. I also read what others tell me, and many of you give one another answers. For example, your email describing a problem arrives at ten in the morning. Then, at 11:30, another email arrives from someone who has an answer to your problem, because he tells me how he dealt with his sorrow. And I think, “There it is. Keep that. Remember it.” I remember that when I was little, we had a catechism teacher who told us this: “When you read something, hear something, or see something on television—whatever you encounter in life—connect it also with...

something else, and write it down. You may need it later to share with someone.”

When I see a beautiful answer in a message, I really do think, “There is a good thought. Keep it and share it.” And so you cry. “How beautiful you are when you cry,” as a poet once said.

Only human beings cry in this way. Animals may cry out from instinct, but a person’s tears carry something different. A person smiles, too. Birds, trees, rivers, and stars do not. No other creature in this world can cry or laugh as we do. But it is a great thing

when you cry, to turn your tears into

words. Give your tears a voice. Become aware of what they mean; know why you are crying. I have told you this before: I do not want you merely to cry without understanding. Cry, by all means. It is good to cry, because...

Your eyes fill with tears, and you let out the tension your soul carries. You release your sorrow. Crying can help and bring relief to the soul. But take one of your tears like a little diamond and examine it. When light passes through a prism, it breaks into many colors. In the same way, look into your tear and see what experiences and feelings it holds. Not every tear is the same, whether in a day, a month, or a lifetime. Notice what each one reveals about your soul: the sorrow it carries, the longing, the truths you might discover through it. All this takes spiritual awakening and attentiveness, so that something may come of your tears. Otherwise, we cry without bearing fruit. Let something grow from them. It would be a shame for water to flow

without watering even one little flower. It would be a shame to let that water go to waste. It could help a seed grow and make a flower lovelier and more fragrant. I pray that a flower may spring from your tears, that something good may come into your life when you are sad. Once, on the Holy Mountain, I said to an ascetic, “Father, people are often moved to tears when we speak. They cry during confession too, and I feel a little awkward.” This was around the year 2000, when I had been given permission to hear confessions. The bishop or Archbishop tells you, “From now on, you may listen as people tell you their logismoi—their intrusive thoughts—their troubles and their sins. You may read the prayer of absolution over them and help them.” I was inexperienced then, and that summer I had decided

to go to the Holy Mountain. I went there often, but that year I thought, “I will ask only for advice about confession.” I had begun hearing confessions, but I did not know what to do. What do you say to people? How do you help them with their troubles? It is a delicate matter. Later I understood that God does most of this work. You simply help clear the way a little. You pray, the clouds part, and the person begins to see what is right. God grants him illumination too; he is baptized. You do not take God’s place. So I went to the Holy Mountain and said to one of the fathers, “Father, these people often cry, and I do not know what to say,

or what to...” He said, “There is nothing wrong with their crying. Let people cry. To begin with, women cry more often.” “Well, yes,” I said, “women do cry more often. Some men cry too, though less often. Men tend to carry their sorrow inside. They do not usually weep and reach for handkerchiefs and tissues. Yes, it is mostly women who cry.” He said, “There is nothing wrong with crying, but learn to draw something fruitful from it.

“Once, when someone was crying,” he told me, “I asked him this: ‘You are crying now. If your tear could speak, what would it say? Do you know why you are crying? What are you seeking through these tears? What is your sorrow right now?’” I said, “That is a beautiful question.” “Yes,” he said, “there is depth to it. If someone cries, something inside him has been touched. What is it? Tenderness? Emotion? A sense of hurt? Longing? An unfulfilled dream? Jealousy? Bitterness?

“What are you really seeking when you cry? Is something missing? Or perhaps you are deeply moved by happiness and say, ‘I am so happy that I am crying.’ Tears can come from joy and gladness.” Once I asked someone who was crying, “Why are you so upset? Why are you crying?” He said, “Deep down, I am crying because everything seems to go against me. Life does not turn out the way I want.” I told him, “That is one of life’s lessons and challenges: to be ready for anything. Things do not turn out exactly as I want either, and they do not for anyone. So much happens

to us. You know, this begins in childhood. It is one of the sorrows of being human: a child is born and grows up, and little by little he discovers that his parents cannot give him everything he wants. At first he is the center of their love. They give him everything: endless hours of attention and care,

Kisses, hugs, tenderness. At the slightest cry from the child, its mother is there. Now they even have devices that let you hear the baby from elsewhere in the house: breathing, calling out, crying, waking, starting suddenly. But as the child grows, he sees that the whole world no longer waits on him as it did at first. His wishes are frustrated, and he feels hurt. He cannot bear it. As a person matures, though, he begins to accept this too. He realizes, ‘I’m no longer the child whose mother gave me whatever I wanted at the slightest request and was always beside me.’ Society and the world are different. Life is hard.

You have to accept what God sends you, even if it is not exactly what you wanted. Ask, ‘What good might come from what God has sent me?’ Instead of protesting, make peace with it. Accept it. Once you have accepted it and settled down, once the agitation, complaining, and aversion have passed, then try to change things too. No one is saying that you must simply accept whatever comes into your life and leave it at that. Make the changes you need to make. But do it without a constant sense of grievance and resistance. Learn to have preferences in life rather than demands. Learn to say, ‘I would prefer this,’ instead of, ‘This absolutely has to happen.’ If you insist that something must happen and it does not, you will be hurt. ‘I would prefer it’ is better, because you may yet receive...

the gift you want. Things may turn out as you dreamed. And if they do not, you will not despair or fall apart, because you can say, ‘Well, I didn’t demand it at all costs. It was something I hoped for.’ We need to be ready for anything. Life is so astonishing, both in its happiness and in its pain, that we do not know what we will face.

Do we really know what each new day will bring? We do not know how much can change in a single minute. In one minute our whole life can change. Let us be ready for whatever comes.

Sometimes people cry because of illness. It is frightening to go to the doctor, feeling well and thinking you are well, and suddenly be told that something is wrong. Recently, when I was in Cyprus, a woman came to see me in tears. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘Your program saved me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I don’t know you.’ ‘Yes, but once, while I was driving, I heard you talking about the tests we ought to have, about not neglecting our health and taking care of it. You said it again twice: “Go to the doctor and have the tests you’ve been putting off.” I had tests I needed to have, but I kept putting them off from month to month and didn’t go, even though I should have.’

‘You said it so strongly that I took it personally. I thought, “He’s talking to me.” So I went and had the tests. The doctor told me, “If you had waited just a few more days, the tumor we found would have been much harder to deal with. We caught it at the very last moment.”’ She was crying with happiness because it had been caught in time. But how often do we bear some responsibility for the tears we later shed? We neglect matters in our lives, including our health. We are afraid to go to the doctor, or we cannot be bothered. We are careless and disorganized, and we say, ‘Oh, leave it. Why bother?’ Or we say, ‘What if they tell us something unpleasant?’ and do not go at all. Then something happens and we cry, though many illnesses can be caught early. That is why I tell you: the point of crying is not simply to cry.

The point is to understand something as well. You are crying now because you are ill. But when you were well, people told you, for example, ‘Look at what you’re eating. It’s dripping with fat!’ You already had a heart problem and blocked arteries. You had been told to avoid fatty, heavy foods. Your triglycerides were up around 400, when the limit was around 150 or a little over 100. Yet you kept eating so much and paid no attention.

Life has consequences. One thing leads to another. You cannot disregard the laws God has placed in creation. There is nothing unspiritual about saying that. Being ill is terrible; being in pain is terrible. And if you bear no responsibility for what has happened, you truly deserve compassion.

You deserve support, of course. And I will tell you this too: I love you, I pray for you, and I pray that God will work His miracle, help you, and wipe away your tears. But you must also pay attention to your life and your health. More generally, when you cry, do not take on the role of a victim. We can become attached to crying because it makes us the center of attention for a while. People come close, comfort us, and say, ‘I’m here with you. What’s wrong? I can see how upset you are, and I’ll help you.’ But in doing this, we underestimate ourselves. We can stand on our own feet.

Get up. Stand on your own feet. Take the steps you can take, and look ahead with hope. Do not give yourself over to the darkness and despair of illness, crying and sinking deeper into it all the time. Say, ‘Something has happened to me, but I will fight,’ and picture yourself healing.

Within myself I envision healing. Christ came and, as Scripture says, ‘went about doing good and healing all.’ He did good and healed everyone. He was a living source of health and healing. Healing flowed from Christ. From His heart and His words came healing waters that restored people’s nous, their spiritual mind, and their bodies. So, in this ordeal you are going through, let the tears of illness water the wings on your back. Let those wings grow. Learn to fly, to persevere, and to live what the Apostle Paul says: ‘When I am weak, then I am strong.’

When I feel that my body cannot go on, when I face illness and trouble, I discover within me a strength of another kind, another quality, another order. Who could explain this passage to us better than you, who weep because of your illness? Someone who has never been ill cannot fully understand a person in pain. But you, who suffer and cry, are growing wiser in life. You become a philosopher without reading a single book. Even without hearing this program, you have much to say yourself. Each pain and sorrow is like writing a whole volume, a work of theology. You speak about the meaning of life, about how fragile and fleeting this world is, about its limits and its vanity. A woman told me about her son: ‘I had so much money to spend on my child. I gave the doctors whatever they asked, yet they could not make him well. What I understood that day, I had never understood from any talk.’

‘I understood that money cannot do everything. In the end, my child did not get well, even though we had plenty of money.’

Someone sent me an email about Alexander the Great that struck me. It said that when he died, he had left three instructions: his doctors were to carry him along the road to his burial; gold and silver coins were to be scattered along the way; and his hands were to hang outside the coffin instead of resting on his chest.

He wanted to make a point about life: ‘Look at my gold and riches. Here they are, yet I am leaving and cannot take them with me. Let my hands hang outside so everyone can see they are empty. I came with empty hands, and I leave with empty hands. I take nothing with me. And let the doctors carry me, so everyone understands that even the doctors who treat me cannot do everything.’

If God judges that the time is right for this person to be led close to Him, if the lesson of this life is finished and you must go from middle school to high school and then to the university of eternal life, then earthly life ends. Do you see, then, what small creatures we are? A human being is a poor, frail little creature. That is... Yet how can this small creature also be so magnificent? Illness teaches us a great deal. And those who recover... You will recover too. You will recover through prayer, through hope, through waiting on Christ, and through the healing Christ grants you. He is health itself, the source of every healing, all health, and every miracle. Then, when you recover, you will see life again with fresh eyes.

It will be as though your eyes have been born again. And what will you say with gratitude? ‘What a wonder this is! What gifts we have! Everything is beautiful. Friends, don’t quarrel over anything. We are alive. I am alive. What a great thing that is! I came close to death and returned; I went down to Hades, and here I am alive again.’ Then your tears will become tears of gratitude.

A man was crying because he was alone. Many young women cry because they are alone too. They say, ‘I still have no one, and I cry because I feel so lonely.’ But what are you doing to come out of your loneliness? As we said, you are crying. What do you want? Shall I comfort you? Of course. Shall I stroke your head? Of course. But will that alone change anything? That is the child within us, wanting to curl up somewhere and hear someone say, ‘You’re right.’ After that, I want us to take responsibility too. Why are you alone? Have you thought about it? Why do you experience loneliness? Could it be that you find other people’s company hard to bear? Why not go out and spend time with them? Why sit at home and waste away? Or could it be that others find you hard to be around? If so, why? Is there something in your behavior that makes it hard for them to spend much time with you?

I say this to make you stop and think, to look at things honestly and say, ‘Perhaps I’m a difficult person, and that’s why others struggle with me. Perhaps I’m odd, self-centered, arrogant, or hard to please.’ Let those tears lead you to self-knowledge: perhaps there is something in my character that needs attention. It cannot be that no one wants to be with me, that everywhere I go I quarrel with everyone, and everyone else is always to blame. I have fallen out with everyone; I have had misunderstandings with everyone. Can everyone in this world really be so bad? Perhaps something is wrong with me.

Tears are a delicate subject, aren’t they? You may be crying because you’re lonely, yet your tears may help you see that part of the problem lies with you. We tend to think that crying proves we’re in the right: “I’m crying because I’ve been wronged. I’m the victim, the poor unfortunate one.” It isn’t always so. You shut yourself up at home.

You become a stranger to everyone. You visit no one, welcome no visitors, and open neither your home nor, above all, your heart. You don’t want anyone to dirty the carpet or get dust on the furniture. But do you know what you’re sometimes avoiding most of all? The commitment that comes with friendship. You say, “I want friends, but I don’t want to get too involved.” That won’t work. To make friends, you have to form bonds with people and open up. And that frightens you: opening your heart, speaking and listening, letting others see the vulnerable parts of your soul. You might feel exposed, embarrassed, diminished, even humbled. You have to hear about another person’s joy and let them hear about your sorrow, and the other way around. You have to find your place among others. How else will you have friends?

How will that loneliness go away? Some people suffer from loneliness but do nothing to come out of it. They sit and wait, thinking, “Someone should come to me.” What did Christ tell us? Be a neighbor yourself. Is there no neighbor beside you? Then become a neighbor to someone. Don’t let your tears over this be fruitless.

Another woman says, “I’ve sinned. See, there it is again: even this little thing I do is a sin. I cry over everything I do, over all my sins, and despair takes hold of me.” Yes, but let your tears over your sins and mistakes lead somewhere. Let them help you grow. They should not be merely tears of wounded pride, a complaint that says, “Why am I like this?” The thing is, some people cry over sins that are not the deeper sins of the soul. You rarely see someone weep because they envy someone, feel jealous, slandered someone, judged someone, worked against them, or spread stories that cost another person their job and made everyone at the office look at them strangely. They hardly count that as sin. But they say, “I didn’t fast on Friday,” and count that as sin.

Is that a sin? Yes, it is. But it certainly isn’t the gravest sin compared with a lack of compassion and a hard heart. That is not the sin you should be weeping over above all else. Let your tears over your sins bear fruit. Let your own pain and failure soften your soul. You sinned; you saw that you, too, fail in life and make mistakes. Others do as well. Have compassion for them. Love them. You are like them, and they need support and kindness just as you do. Of course, some people who cry over their sins don’t want to leave their guilt behind, however much you try to give them hope. They want their tears to keep hurting them. But I tell them...

Let your tears refresh your soul. Let your soul be refreshed and say, “God loves me.” “No,” they say, “I want to sink deeper into guilt and remorse.” And it is not because Christ tells us to do this: Christ did not ask us to sink into remorse or to weep without comfort. Some even say that the great sin of Christians is not that they commit sins, but that they have no joy. Think of their gloom, their miserable atmosphere, their constant complaints, that grumbling, downcast manner. A young person approaches them and, instead of finding people who feel redeemed, relieved, and renewed by Christ... There is nothing Protestant about this way of thinking. There is nothing Protestant about saying, “When I enter the Church, my soul becomes more sensitive. I confess, my soul begins to find its balance, I receive Holy Communion, I take the body and blood of the Lord into myself, and I grow stronger.”

I am transformed, and I live what the Apostle Paul says: “I was a sinner, and God showed me mercy.” That is the feeling: yes, I am a sinner. I have many passions, and much is wrong in my life. But I have hope. I have taken Christ’s hand, and as long as I stay close to Him, I will not lose my way. Sometimes I ask people who weep over their sins, “What does Gospel mean? Tell me, what does Gospel mean? Could it be that you secretly enjoy these tears, this constant weeping when you need not always weep?” Some never cry at all, through sheer insensitivity and indifference. Others cry constantly without cause, seeking out a sadness of their own.

Do you feel you matter more when you feel dirty and unworthy? Do you take some comfort in the role of victim? I don’t know. These things are mysterious. And some people cry without knowing why. They feel trapped inside: “Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. Something is choking me. I feel a weight here on my chest.” I ask, “Do you pray?” “I do.” “Have you received Holy Communion, gone to confession, done some reading?” “Yes, yes, but nothing helps.” “Then what is troubling you?” “I don’t know. I have no sense of purpose, no reason to get up and live my life. Everything looks dark, and nothing gives me joy.” Then let me tell you something: find help. Find a way forward.

Go and speak to someone. Find a clergyman with experience in matters of mental health and tell him what you’re going through. Don’t go on weeping as endless days pass. “How long have you been like this?” I ask. “For the past few months. I cry at night, sit alone, and feel miserable.” It is a shame to spend endless days and hours in depression, gloom, and tears. Go and find a doctor who can help you. “Am I allowed to?” the person asks. What am I supposed to say? “Sit there until you die rather than see a doctor”? Go to a doctor. It may be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, another specialist, or a spiritual father who understands these matters. Shouldn’t we seek help? You are wasting away, becoming ill, sinking deeper, especially when this has gone on for months. I don’t think a person should let even a week go by like that.

Don’t remain there, unable to understand what is troubling you. Cry out to someone. Pick up the phone. Visit someone you trust and tell them what is happening, so they can help you find a way forward. Don’t keep it to yourself. Open your mouth. What did I say? Turn your tears into words. Say what is wrong, what you want, what you feel. Even telling someone that you feel confused is a way of connecting and sharing.

Some people cry for another reason: they cannot live out what they long for deep down. “There are things I want,” they say, “but I can’t live them. I want a certain kind of life, a certain job, something to do, somewhere to go. I want to travel, study, get married. I have dreams.” Whatever it may be, a person has a desire.

There is a longing in the soul, and when you cannot live it out, it is a torment. It hurts deeply. That is how the prophet Daniel was described: “a man of desires,” a man full of holy longings. He wanted things. He wanted to feel God’s nearness and see the Kingdom of God. It is a great thing for a person to desire. Of course, desire brings joy, but also responsibility, effort, and a cost you must be willing to pay. It is not simple or easy. Christ very much wants us to live out the longing within us.

There is a seed inside you that wants to flower in this life. You, too, were born for a purpose. I want to do something, to live in a certain way, to put my gifts to work somewhere. And so do you. You need to bring that to light. Christ always wanted people to live out the longing in their hearts.

Desire itself is not sin. Even when someone desires something sinful, deep in the heart that desire begins with a longing for something good. God did not bring anyone into the world to desire sins. We are looking for something else that we have not yet found. Find that something else. Christ very much wants you to live your dream.

Something I read about the woman with the flow of blood struck me. She had been bleeding for twelve years and had suffered terribly. I had never thought about this: for twelve years she could not live out a desire for married life and a family. Would she not have longed for someone to love her? Would she not have wanted a child? I had always looked at the miracle simply as a woman’s bleeding coming to an end. But with such faith, surely her longing moved the heart of Christ. It was as though she were saying to Him, “There is something I want, and I want it with all my heart.”

Surely her eyes were wet with tears, too. Deep longing can move you to tears. And Christ felt power go out from Him. “I knew that power had gone out from Me.” He felt something leave Him because He had connected with this woman, and she with Him. She entrusted herself to Christ.

She showed Him her longing: “I want You to help me. I trust You.” And He healed her. He helped her in more than a bodily way, stopping the blood she kept losing and ending her suffering. He also made it possible for her, if she wished, to have a family, find someone, feel herself a woman, and feel wanted.

At that time, no one would come near a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. There were laws in the Old Testament concerning a woman’s monthly cycle. A man who touched her had to undergo washings and rites of purification. If you touch something unclean, you become unclean too. That was how people understood it. So this woman was isolated. No one came near her, much less could she become a mother.

Tears. The earth is flooded with tears. One day I wondered how many tears are shed throughout the world each day. So many tears. Another time, when I was in America, I heard people in a restaurant saying, “Do you know how many potatoes Americans eat every day? Tons. How many burgers? Tons. How much rubbish is thrown away? Tons.” And I thought: how many tears are shed by people in pain, by those who lose loved ones or watch their children suffer? Those tears hurt deeply. We weep for those we love. Of course, sometimes we go too far. Sometimes we weep for our loved ones because, deep down, we want something from them. Someone says, “I do everything for my child.” Yes, but perhaps you do everything because you expect everything in return. You build your child a house next to yours because you want your child close by.

Then your child does not stay, because they want to live freely. You press in on them, suffocate them, and then you cry. If you look closely at why you are crying, you may realize that your spiritual fathers warned you: “Don’t force yourself on your child or become a burden.” Yet you went ahead. Then bitterness comes, and you suffer the consequences. You want your child to obey you, consult you, let you decide things. “Why did you buy a white car, my child? I told you to get a silver one. Didn’t I say so when we went to the showroom together?” And the child says, “Mum, did I marry you?”

Constantly, at every age, you interfere in someone else’s life: whom he should marry, how he should live, how he should raise his children. “The child is cold. Put another layer on him.” What are you doing? A time will come when you’ll weep over this.

The other person can’t bear it. Then you tell yourself you love your child, while doing everything for your own good and crying for his. But that isn’t why you’re crying just then. You’re crying because you’re hurt that things didn’t go exactly your way. Respect that. Let your child be. That is love. Your child loves you and appreciates your gifts, and will appreciate the freedom and respect you give him even more. Let the child be, and he’ll find his way. Don’t you agree? Vasilis, I believe freedom is worth whatever it costs to have it. And respect, too. Let me live without smothering me. Vasilis Hatzinikolaou, please play us something that won’t smother us, something that opens us out onto a sea of freedom.

I read something about Jairus. When his little girl died, he too went to Christ in tears. “Please, my child is dying,” he cried. Christ understood that this man needed help for his child. But, some say, He also understood that the child was more than someone Jairus loved: she was someone he wanted for himself.

He didn’t simply love her. He wanted very much to shape her as he wished. And the proof, some ask, is this: where was the mother? Jairus went alone. There was no other man in the New Testament who went to Christ on behalf of his child. It is always mothers who go for their children. Here was a man who had taken far too much authority over his child. The mother was nowhere to be seen, and he said, “Please, my child.”

That is why, some say, when Christ went to work the miracle and raise the twelve-year-old girl who had died, He asked both her mother and her father to come in and stand there together. Christ healed the child, raised her, and told her parents, “Give her something to eat and drink.” What does that mean? You weep for your child. You grieve over what happened. You are her parents. Until now, you weren’t both there together; there was only one of you. Now I have brought you both in, so she can see that she has two parents. But do you know what your child needs from the two of you? Food, water, and the basics. Let her find the rest as she stands on her own feet and lives her own life. At twelve, the girl is beginning to grow up. In those days, children married very young, and she could gradually become a mother herself. And Christ is saying, “Let your daughter be. Don’t smother her.” He didn’t tell them, “Smother her with love and kisses. Hug her until she can’t breathe.”

With all your excessive protection and love. No. A little water, a little food, and let her walk, let her feel that she is entering the world. You think you’re crying for him or her, for your child. But really you’re crying because you feel you’re losing something. You think you’re losing someone who was an extension of yourself. You thought your child would always be yours. But your child isn’t an object. Your child isn’t a table that you can move wherever you like and keep beside you as long as you like. No, your child will spread their wings and go out into life. So our tears are often less pure than we think. But if you sit with them and ask yourself, “Why am I crying now? What do I really want? Why am I crying over my child? Why can’t I give my child just what is needed? I give, but I also want something back.”

“I want to take on roles that aren’t mine. I want to absorb my child into myself, to make my child entirely mine, without a personality or a will of their own.” If you do that, you will weep. You will. And something else: when you weep over your loved ones, your relatives, your children, be careful. Don’t judge others who are having troubles at home. A time may come when you weep over something similar in your own home. In my limited experience of Church life and the people I have known, I’ve seen many cases where people criticized other families and other children over work, behavior, character, morals, upbringing, or psychological troubles. They judged and talked about others. Then the same trouble came to their own door, and they wept in their own homes.

Someone was talking about a young relative who had divorced. “What sort of children are these? Look, their children got divorced and all that. As for us, Glory to God, we’re doing well.” Six years passed, and his own child divorced. Then he wept. Now you’re crying, but you’ve forgotten how harsh you were. Another man condemned a young woman who had had an abortion. He spoke about her with such contempt that he humiliated both her and her family. He told one person, then another; he commented and gossiped. Years later, his own daughter had an abortion. Then he fell silent. He wept and was beside himself, saying, “What has happened to me?” And even then his tears came from pride, because he said, “We’ve been disgraced.” For some people, that’s all they think about: our disgrace. Do they think about the anguish of the young woman who had the abortion, the desperate place she had reached, the mistake she made, the little child who was lost—

do they think about all of it? They think only, “What will people say about us? What will they say? How do they see us?” We are human. If you understand that you, too, are human, and that what you judge in others may happen to you, you’ll become much more gentle and compassionate. Your tears will soften you instead of hardening you, and then God will love you. You’ll see: the tears of pain will lessen, and tears of gratitude will come. What you say about others may one day happen to someone close to you. And the most overwhelming tears are the tears of mourning. Ah, there is nothing to say then. When you visit someone who is grieving, you hand them a tissue. You don’t tell them to stop. You weep with them. There is nothing you can say, because it is terrible. Death truly is a terrible tragedy. It overturns everything, even the way we make sense of the world.

It makes no sense to us. Here is someone you love, someone whose company you enjoy, someone who brings you joy. And then what happens is unbearable. It drives you almost out of your mind. It is an immense, bewildering question. It is terrible.

So when you weep from pain, mourning, or the loss of someone you love, no one can tell you what to feel. Speak. Talk about the person you loved. Say how good your times together were. Remember particular moments. Don’t hide those tears or force them to dry up. Remember what that person gave you, what you gave them, what you said to each other, the gifts you exchanged, the places you visited, the beautiful moments you shared.

Yet even these tears help you. Even tears of mourning help you see many things, including the love you shared, which is not lost. Nothing beautiful that you lived together has been lost. Something beautiful cannot simply disappear. The person you love is no longer beside you, but you keep them alive in your memory of that love. You can still feel their soul.

You pray for their soul. And in that way, your tears become a comfort from God, who says, “I am the one who unites you.” The person who has gone has left marks on your soul. They are not lost. They have left their mark. Their love is carved into your heart, like the love young people carve into tree trunks. You carry the love of the person you cherished within your soul, whether that person was your child, your wife, your husband, your neighbor, your relative, your brother or sister, your mother or father.

Their soul still exists, and the mark of their love remains within you. Of course, you also come to see the futility and uncertainty of human life. And you say, “I loved this person so much, and now they’re gone. How could I give so much love and think this person was everything to me, only to lose the one I thought was everything?” There you see the end of life. You see life passing away, death leveling everything, and love holding everything up. It is overwhelming. And people also weep when they are disappointed, not by those who have died but by living people they had trusted. Those living people, too, help us mature and make us much stronger.

You realize that life will bring surprises and pain, even from places you never expected.

Remember, of course, that you too have hurt people in the past and made them cry. Hasn’t that ever happened in your life too? We say, “Oh, what he did to me! He disappointed me, and I trusted him.” But you, too, have taken steps like that. You have hurt people and made them sad. You abandoned them, you don’t speak to them now, you cut them off.

They were crying, and you didn’t know it. They were waiting to call, and you weren’t picking up. And the person you hurt back then—I don’t know. But someone who was deeply wounded and had wept a great deal because another person betrayed him once told me, “Father, I pray this, not as a curse. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I only pray that, when God wills it, he may understand how much pain I felt.” A prayer like that is not lost before God.

It is the prayer of someone wounded, someone treated unjustly. Someone who did good and received cruelty, injustice, and deep bitterness in return. Injustice cries out to God: “What is happening? Please, let there be justice.” And the person says, “My God, please, I don’t ask You to take revenge. I only ask that one day he understand how much what he did cost me.” Then, years later, something happens to you. You feel that pain yourself, and you say:

“So this is how much it hurts when someone wounds you? This much?” Well, today our time has passed in tears. What can I say? Please, no crying. Tears are forbidden during the program; other people can see you! If you’re alone, of course, cry as much as you need to. But crying itself isn’t the point. That is what we’ve been saying all this time. When you cry, think about why you’re crying. Think about what you’re seeking. Don’t say that everything in your life has gone wrong, or “If only I had known these things earlier,” as you told me—

You told me in Thessaloniki, “If I had known these things earlier, my life would have been different.” All right, then start from here. “But haven’t so many years gone by?” From here, I tell you again. Fifty years have passed? All right. You may live another forty or fifty; I don’t know how much time God will give you. That is no small thing. “But I’ve grown old. What can I do now that I’m eighty? I didn’t know these things, and I had never thought of them this way.” There is no reason to despair. Even if I had only two days left to live—I’m speaking about myself, because you will live many more—those two days would be enough to live well, to live a life renewed close to God, a life within the Mysteries of the Church. I can draw near, go to confession, be transformed, receive Holy Communion. There is still time. Even if I have little time left, I can do so much. So we need to look beneath the surface. Don’t look only at the tear;

look at what lies within that pain. Why are you crying? What do you want? What are you seeking? Then you’ll know what to struggle for and how to pursue it. Something an ascetic said struck me, and I want to tell you about it. It shows why we need to go deeper than the surface of our tears.

An ascetic had lost his needle and was looking for it. He was outside his cell, searching in the dirt. The sun was setting, and by its last rays he could still see. Another ascetic came by, and he said, “Could you help me a little, Father? I’ve lost my needle. Would you look for it too?” “I think I’ll have a look.” They searched and searched, but they couldn’t find it. At last the other man said, “Father, where is this needle? Where did you lose it? I can’t find it. I’ve searched everywhere, and there’s no sign of it. Where exactly did you lose it?”

“Inside,” he said. “I lost it inside the cave.” “You lost it inside the cave, and we’re looking out here?” “Well, yes, but there’s light out here. There’s no light inside.” There you have it. That’s what we do. We look where something is visible, and we look only there. But the needle isn’t there. Our needle has been lost somewhere deeper. What really troubles us, what hurts us, what makes us bitter and sad, may be something else entirely. We cry over one thing when something else is weighing on us. Finding that something else is a great step: knowing why we really cry. And then we can share it with people we trust, people who love us. I was so struck by a young woman who told me through her tears, “I don’t go to weddings. I cry, and people think I’m moved by the occasion. But I cry because my own longing is eating away at me.” It takes a great deal to be able to say, “I’m not crying because I’m touched and wishing the couple well. I’m crying because I’m aching inside. Why am I still unmarried?” Being able to share that matters.

Then take steps too. Say to yourself, “Crying isn’t enough. I need to take steps toward having a lovely family of my own.” Vasilis, please don’t scold me or I’ll cry. Our time is up. Vasilis is telling me, “Time is running out; we have to finish.” I’ll leave you now. I pray that you will be very joyful and blessed, and that God will wipe away the tears of your soul. Even if there are no tears in your eyes, the tears in your heart count just as much: tears of pain, of the heart, of sensitivity, kindness, love, and prayer. They count within the heart too; they have weight, God sees them, and they shine. May you have a blessed week, and may we speak again next week, all being well, about a new subject that might bring us another tear. I say might; I don’t know. May you have strength.