The life-changing Good Friday experience was marked by tears that were uncontrollable. We come across this phenomenon of tears on several important religious moments in the life of Eugene (often while celebrating Mass). They were signs of a deep experience of God.
Can I forget the bitter tears that the sight of the cross brought streaming from my eyes one Good Friday?
Indeed they welled up from the heart, there was no checking them, they were too abundant for me to be able to hide them from those who like myself were assisting at that moving ceremony.
Retreat Journal, December 1814, O.W. XV n.130