Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart
A
And now I continue to accuse my cursed soul
in different terms confessing all my
undisclosed evil doings so that perhaps
the all-knowing might record in my favor
these anguished words of penitence and contrition.
B
My body, the grievous tormentor of my soul,
wounded, untreatable, beyond care or recovery,
1
is like a talking horse with a callous mouth,
breaking my reins and shaking off my bit,
a surly, wild and incorrigible colt,
an untame, recalcitrant, and stubborn
2 heifer,
a homeless man, banished and lost,
a street urchin, roguish and impudent,
a steward, deserving mortal punishment,
unfaithful and indolent,
an intelligent person, turned beastly and unclean,
an abandoned olive tree, barren and dry,
a body, discomfiting my soul, condemned and writhing,
a victim, untended, untreatable, irreparable,
a string of imperial gold coins, wasted and forfeited,
a delinquent servant, runaway and wretched.
3
C
I am of no use to you at all, Lord,
for I am willingly self-destructive of soul and body,
and remain spiritually lost and mentally deluded,
with a twisted will
4 and broken heart,
5
absent-minded and stagnant-brained,
numb and drained,
brazen and disagreeable,
besieged by inflammations,
wracked by fatal sickness.
I pity the womb that bore me and
bemoan the breasts that fed me, asking
why was their milk not curdled with bile?
Why was I nurtured with sweetness rather than bitterness?
D
And because I have risen against myself
with words like a harsh prosecutor
and have even taken up the sword
of righteous anger that cannot be sheathed,
who among the earth-born will plead for me?
I shall confess every scandalous detail.
I shall submit my being to judgment.
I shall beat down the army of destruction.
I shall prosecute the marauders wounding me.
I have sinned in everything and in all ways.
Have mercy upon me, O compassionate God.
It is no new thing to find me in the fog of iniquity.
I am always the same, breaking
the same commandments and appearing
before you unreformed, stumbling
in an unmendable garment.
And only you, who stands by me,
O truly compassionate and blessed,
with your love of humankind and your
unwavering forgiveness can save me.
6
E
Now, O caregiving, mighty, heavenly, kind,
creator of all out of nothing,
send the thunderbolt
7 of wisdom in powerful words,
upon the movements of my tongue
that it might cleanse the senses
with which you endowed me,
so that with the faculties you created and
fixed a second time,
I might offer thanks to you
with unfailing voice and unbroken speech.
For the glory of the majesty of your Father,
our God, forever.
Amen.
