Healing the hurt

"A clean heart create for me, God;

renew in me a steadfast spirit."

Psalm 51:12

Psalm 51 is a psalm of someone repenting, someone wishing to retrieve the hope he had lost, lying where he had fallen, begging the Lord to give him a hand to raise him up again, like someone quite capable of injuring himself but not of healing himself. After all, we can wound our own flesh whenever we want, but to heal it we look for a doctor. In the same way the soul is perfectly able to sin all by itself, but to heal the hurt it has caused by sinning, it implores the helping hand of God.

-- St. Augustine

"Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home."

Luke 5:24