Why do you
mean so much to me? Why do I mean so much to you that you command me to love
you? And if I fail to love you, you threaten me with great sorrow, as if not to
love you not sorrow enough.
Have pity
on me and help me, o Lord my God, speak so that I may hear your words. Whisper
in my heart, ‘I am here to save you’. My heart has ears ready to listen to you,
Lord, open them wide and I shall hear your voice and make haste to clasp you to
myself.
My soul is
like a house, small for you to enter, but I beg you to enlarge it. It is in
ruins; I ask you to rebuild it.
In it is
much that will displease you: this I know and I do not conceal it from you. But
who is to empty it of these things? To
you only I can say, ‘I trust, and trusting I find words to utter’. Lord, you
know that this is so, for I have acknowledged my sin.
I do not
dispute your judgement for you are truth itself, and I have no wish to delude
myself lest I betray my own malice. ‘For if you, Lord, will mark iniquities who
may abide it? ‘
(Confess. I,5)
