Book XXI
Diverse Sayings
xxx. An old man was asked by a certain soldier if God received a penitent man. And after heartening him with many words, he said to him at the last, "Tell me, beloved, if thy cloak were torn, wouldst thou throw it away?" He said "Nay, but I would patch it and wear it." The old man said to him, "If thou wouldst spare thy garment, shall not God have mercy on His own image?"
Of a surety I have seen the forgiveness of God in my life, and even now I know that my whole existence depends on this state of forgiveness. I have no refuge in any other place, but only in His forgiveness, which I can never deserve. The prophet Isaiah declared that "And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Douay version)
I haven't any righteousness of my own that has not been tainted, and I am sure that there has not been a day of my life wherein I have not sinned. That is to say I have, (to paraphrase the "Confession") sinned, through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words. In the deeds that I have done, and in what I have failed to do. Even if I lived with my thoughts quite right today, I am very sure there is something I have failed to do, and so I stand in need of that constant grace in my life.
xxx. An old man was asked by a certain soldier if God received a penitent man. And after heartening him with many words, he said to him at the last, "Tell me, beloved, if thy cloak were torn, wouldst thou throw it away?" He said "Nay, but I would patch it and wear it." The old man said to him, "If thou wouldst spare thy garment, shall not God have mercy on His own image?"
Of a surety I have seen the forgiveness of God in my life, and even now I know that my whole existence depends on this state of forgiveness. I have no refuge in any other place, but only in His forgiveness, which I can never deserve. The prophet Isaiah declared that "And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Douay version)
I haven't any righteousness of my own that has not been tainted, and I am sure that there has not been a day of my life wherein I have not sinned. That is to say I have, (to paraphrase the "Confession") sinned, through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words. In the deeds that I have done, and in what I have failed to do. Even if I lived with my thoughts quite right today, I am very sure there is something I have failed to do, and so I stand in need of that constant grace in my life.