Our Lady of Tears

From 29 August to 1 September 1953, a plaster plaque of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, placed over the headboard of the bed of a young couple, Angelo Iannuso and Antonina Giusto, at 11 Via degli Orti St., shed human tears.

The phenomenon took place at more or less long intervals inside and outside of the home. Many saw, touched, gathered and tasted the salt of the tears.

On Sunday, 30 August an amateur film maker of Syracuse, Nicola Guarino, was able to capture the event on film, making this one of the very few miraculous happenings with such documentation.

On 1 September, at 11:00 a.m., a Commission of doctors and analysts went to the Iannuso home sent by the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Syracuse. They withdrew a sample of the liquid that flowed from the eyes. The microscopic analysis verified: “They are human tears.” After the scientific analysis, on the fourth day of the lachrymation, the weeping ceased.

Why did the Blessed Mother weep?

“Will humanity understand the mysterious language of those tears?” asked Pope Pius XII in the radio message of 1954.

Mary, in Syracuse, did not speak as to Catherine Labouré in Paris (1830), as to Massimino and Melanie at La Salette (1846), as to Bernadette at Lourdes (1858), as to Francis, Jacinta and Lucy at Fatima (1917), as to Mariette at Banneux (1933).

When there are no more words, tears are the last word.

The tears of Mary are the sign of the maternal love and of the participation of a Mother in the life of her children. Someone who loves, shares.

The tears are an expression of the sentiment of God towards us: A message of God to humanity.
It is a strong invitation to conversion of heart and to prayer, addressed to us
by Mary in her apparitions and repeated again through the silent, but eloquent, language of her tears.

Mary wept from a humble plaster plaque, in the heart of the city of Syracuse, in a home next door to an Evangelical Church; in a very modest home of a young family; over a mother awaiting her first child, sick with gestational toxicosis ... all of this cannot be without significance.
The tender message of help and encouragement of our heavenly Mother is evident. She suffers with those who suffer to defend the values of the family, the inviolability of life, the sense of the Transcendent before the prevailing materialism, the value of unity. Mary, with her tears, admonishes guides, encourages and consoles us.

Blessed John Paul II speaks
“Shrine of Our Lady of Tears, you were erected to remind the Church of the tears of our Mother.”

“The tears of Mary belong to the order of signs: They testify to the presence of our Mother in the Church and in the world. A mother weeps when she sees her children threatened by evil, be it spiritual or physical.”

“Shrine of Our Lady of Tears, you were erected to remind the Church of the tears of our Mother. May all those who are oppressed by the awareness of their sins, come here, within these welcoming walls, and experience the richness of the mercy of God and of his forgiveness! May the tears of their Mother guide them here.”

“They are tears of sorrow for all those who refuse the love of God, for those families which are broken or in difficulty, for the young people seduced by a consumerist civilization and so often disoriented, for the violence that still spills so much blood and for the misunderstandings and hate which dig deep trenches between individuals and peoples. They are tears of prayer: the Mother’s prayer that gives strength to every other prayer, and that rises in supplication for all those who do not pray because they are distracted by a thousand other interests, or because they are obstinately closed to God’s call. They are tears of hope, which melt the hardness of hearts and open them to meeting Christ the Redeemer, source of light and peace for individuals, for families, for the whole of society”.