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Late Lines at Lent
By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
March 20, 2015
O Lord, the observances of Lent
Fill my soul with discontent
As to how superficially I repent!
Rend your heart and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Joel 2:13
I scarcely know my heart's disease
And how I live, my will to please.
I breach your will with complacent ease.
We have followed too much the evil intentions
and desires of our own hearts.
We have broken your holy laws.
We have left undone the things we ought to have done;
and we have done the things we ought not to have done;
and there is no spiritual soundness within us.
A General Confession
The death to self I cannot die,
I'm loathe my impulses to deny.
My heart I refuse to have you try.
O Lord, correct me, but with judgment;
not in thine anger,
lest thou bring me to nothing.
Jeremiah 10:24. Psalm 6:1 BCP 1662
Lord, how may I be justified,
My distance from you, O so wide?
What dangerous wand'rings I have plied.
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam,
(as the Pelagians do vainly talk;)
but it is the fault and corruption of the nature
of every man, that naturally is engendered
of the offspring of Adam;
whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness,
and is of his own nature inclined to evil,
so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit:
and therefore in every person born into this world,
it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.
Article IX. Of Original or Birth-sin
Lord lift me from this great distress.
Grant me alacrity to confess,
Then hold me in your tenderness.
Have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love;
blot out my transgression.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleans me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Psalm 51:1-7, 10-12.
