Mary’s tears are an antidote to indifference, stressed Cardinal Pietro Parolin, during the celebration of Mass in the Shrine of the Virgin of Tears, in Syracuse, (Sicily, Italy), on September 1, 2018.
These tears express the Virgin’s suffering “in face of those who refuse God’s love, families torn apart and in difficulty, and young people menaced by the civilization of consumption,” but they are also tears that “melt the hardness of heart” and “open to an encounter with Christ,” added the Secretary of State in his homily reported by L’Osservatore Romano.
The Vatican’s “Number 2” pointed out to Christians that their days are often filled with messages to send and tasks to accomplish “which are not oriented to God,” resulting in the danger of “investing energy in a sad attachment to material goods.” He encouraged involvement to “alleviate sufferings by initiatives of peace and responsible gestures and words.”
The Secretary of State was celebrating the 65th anniversary of the tears of a statue in a young couple’s home. It happened on August 29, 1953, in the home of Angelo Iannuso and Antonina Lucia Giusti, when an enameled plaster effigy representing Mary and her Immaculate Heart began to shed tears several times until September 1. John Paul II consecrated the modern Shrine on November 6, 1994. Last month Pope Francis received a reliquary, brought from Syracuse, in the Chapel of Saint Martha’s Residence.
During his stay in Sicily, Cardinal Parolin also went to the oasis of Troina, a scientific medical center specialized in the area of intellectual handicap and cerebral regression.
