Editor’s Note: September 14 is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The following day we honor the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. September 17 is the day we commemorate St. Francis having received the painful stigmata. September 19 is the 180th anniversary of when Our Blessed Mother appeared weeping on a mountain of La Salette. That is followed by the Feast of St. Matthew. It’s hard to imagine this public sinner (i.e., tax collector) not shedding copious tears – for his life of sin – after Our Lord had called him (cf. Matthew 9:9-13). Then on September 24 is the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, Who sheds tears for Christians captured by infidels (or those enslaved to sin). Clearly, in at this time of the liturgical year, Our Lady and Holy Mother Church are directing their spiritual children to consider the importance of sorrow – compunction – in the spiritual life.
The Calling of Saint Matthew (1752) by Giovanni Panini
He Wept Bitterly…
Modern man is uncomfortable with tears. Sorrow is often treated as something to suppress or escape. Even in the spiritual life, Catholics may think repentance means simply acknowledging sin and moving on.
The Fathers of the Church understood something deeper. They frequently spoke of compunction of the heart: the interior sorrow by which the soul recognizes its sins, grieves over having offended God, and longs more deeply for Heaven.
Sacred Scripture provides the foundation. After St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, his hearers “had compunction in their heart” and asked what they must do (Acts 2:37). After denying Our Lord, St. Peter “going forth, he wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). The penitent woman washed Christ’s feet with her tears (cf. Luke 7:38). And the Psalmist declares: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5).
The tears praised by the Fathers are not sentimentalism. They are the outward expression of a heart pierced by divine truth.
What Is Compunction?
The word compunction conveys the idea of being pierced or pricked. The soul sees sin more clearly and is wounded by the realization that it has offended God.
This is more than ordinary regret. A person may regret sin because it damaged his reputation, cost him money, or produced painful consequences. Compunction grieves because sin itself is an offense against the God Who created, redeemed, and loves us. The Church prays: “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 50:19).
St. John Cassian associates compunction with purification of the heart. The soul recalls its sins with sorrow, but that sorrow should weaken its attachment to the passions and strengthen its desire for God (Institutes, Book V, ch. 14). True compunction therefore does not merely make us feel bad about the past. It changes what we desire.
St. Gregory the Great and Two Kinds of Tears
St. Gregory the Great gives one of the clearest patristic explanations of compunction.
Writing to Theoctista, he distinguishes two forms. The first arises from fear. The soul remembers its sins, considers divine judgment and hell, and weeps because it recognizes the danger into which sin has placed it.
But there is also a higher form arising from love.
Once the soul has begun to trust in God’s mercy, it may weep because it longs for Heaven and grieves that it does not yet possess God perfectly. St. Gregory thus describes a movement from sorrow over punishment to longing for eternal union with God (Registrum Epistolarum, Book VII, Letter 26).
The first tears arise from fear of losing God. The second arises from longing to possess Him. Both can be holy.
This distinction prevents Catholic penitents from becoming gloomy or despairing. Compunction begins with the knowledge of sin but should end by turning the soul toward God.
The Tears of St. Peter
St. Peter provides one of the clearest examples. He had confidently promised that he would remain faithful to Christ even if all the others fled. Yet in the courtyard of the high priest, he denied Our Lord three times. Then “the Lord turning looked on Peter” (Luke 22:61). Peter remembered Christ’s warning and “going out, wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).
Those tears were not despair. Judas also regretted his betrayal, but his sorrow turned inward and ended in destruction. Peter’s sorrow returned him to Christ. Authentic compunction must therefore remain joined to confidence in divine mercy. The devil first tempts men to think sin is insignificant and then, after they fall, tempts them to believe forgiveness is impossible.
The Catholic response is neither presumption nor despair, but repentance. Acknowledge the sin. Mourn it sincerely. Confess it. Return to Christ.
Editor’s Note: Those who personally knew St. Peter spoke of how he had two permanent furrows running down the skin of his cheeks. These were formed over many years because he shed so many tears, time and time again, over having denied Our Lord on Holy Thursday. In fact, ancient wooden confessionals found in European churches often depict both the Keys of Peter and an image of St. Peter in tears with furrowed cheeks.
Tears Must Be Genuine
The Fathers also warned against counterfeit sorrow.
St. John Chrysostom praises tears that arise from genuine compunction rather than from the desire to be seen by others (Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily VI). Physical tears themselves are not proof of holiness. A person may cry easily and possess little repentance. Another may rarely shed tears while possessing profound contrition.
Catholics should therefore never attempt to manufacture emotion in prayer or measure the sincerity of repentance by whether they cry. God asks for a contrite heart.
St. Gregory acknowledges that some souls possess real faith and virtue without receiving what he calls the “grace of tears” (Registrum Epistolarum, Book VII, Letter 26). The essential thing is that the heart ceases to be hardened toward God.
Tears for the Salvation of Others
Christian tears may also be offered for other souls.
St. Monica is the great example. St. Augustine recalls that his mother wept for his conversion “more than mothers are wont to weep the bodily death of their children” (Confessions, Book III, ch. 11). She recognized the far greater danger of spiritual death. Her tears became prayer, sacrifice, and perseverance. Augustine eventually abandoned his errors, received Baptism from St. Ambrose, and became one of the greatest Doctors of the Church.
Catholics may likewise grieve for children who abandon the Faith, relatives who refuse the Sacraments, or societies increasingly hostile to God. Such sorrow need not become hopelessness. United with prayer and sacrifice, it becomes intercession.
Compunction and the Hardness of Heart
One of the greatest effects of compunction is that it destroys spiritual hardness.
Repeated sin dulls the conscience. What once caused shame begins to appear normal. The sinner excuses himself, compares himself favorably with others, and gradually loses horror for offending God.
Compunction reverses this. It makes Confession more sincere. It deepens one’s examination of conscience. It transforms penance from an exterior burden into the response of a soul that truly desires reconciliation with God. This is why meditation on the Passion, death, judgment, hell, and eternity has always occupied an important place in Catholic spirituality. We do not meditate on these things to become morbid. We meditate on them because forgetfulness produces carelessness.
The soul that remembers Calvary cannot easily call sin trivial. The soul that remembers judgment cannot indefinitely postpone repentance. And the soul that remembers Heaven begins to understand St. Gregory’s higher compunction: sorrow not only because we have offended God, but because He is so good and we possess Him so imperfectly.
Fatima and Compunction for Sinners
This spirit of compunction appears clearly at Fatima.
After the vision of hell on July 13, 1917, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta became intensely concerned for the salvation of sinners. Jacinta especially reflected on the souls who were being lost and offered prayers and sacrifices for their conversion. She could never afterward put the thought out of her mind. “How sorry I am for sinners!” she often moaned. “Oh, if only I could show them hell! And the people who are there, being burned alive, like wood in a fire!”
Their sorrow did not produce despair. It produced reparation.
Our Lady showed the children the consequences of sin so that they would pray more fervently and sacrifice more generously for souls. This is authentic Catholic compunction.
The modern world tells us not to take sin too seriously. The Fathers teach us to allow the heart to be pierced by it. Fatima teaches us to transform that sorrow into prayer, penance, and reparation.
Catholics should therefore ask God for true compunction – not emotionalism or despair, but a heart tender enough to mourn sin and confident enough to trust in His mercy. We should grieve because we have offended God. We should sorrow for souls who remain far from Him.
And we should ask, with St. Gregory, for that higher compunction by which the soul longs increasingly for Heaven, where every tear will finally give way to the perfect possession of God.
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For more information on the importance of reparation, see The Fatima Crusader Issue 135 (Living the Message of Fatima), especially those articles focused on reparation, pp. 17-22.