Lancelot is overcome with tears because he has learned another fundamental truth about God: He still loves Lancelot, despite the knight's forsaking Him for the warmth of a worldly, human bed. The miracle here is a paradox (a human behaves in a divine way) because the love of God is paradoxical as well: A man (or Man) can fall — repeatedly — yet still receive the love (and even grace) of God. Lancelot's tears are those of joy, but not pride, because he has learned that even the "greatest knight in the world" — and all of his chivalric ideals — cannot ever reach the perfection of a God who offers the true, unconditional love for which humans are constantly in search.
As Sir Lionel remarks early in the novel, "Give me a man who insists on doing the right thing all the time, and I will show you a tangle which an angel couldn't get out of." What The Ill-Made Knight makes clear is that no man — not even the best — can do "the right thing all the time." Only God can make such a claim, and judging from what Lancelot tells Arthur and Guenever about pride, He would not ever make such a boast in the first place. Man's love, as seen in Guenever, is wonderful yet flawed; only God's love offers the moral perfection that chivalry attempts to replicate.
