A Prayer of a Penitent Heart

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.
PSALM 31:9
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A Prayer of a Penitent Heart
[This is] a beautiful prayer of a conscience that is fearful and that acknowledges it has sinned. . .. Indeed, this is the rule for tropological language: Wherever in the Psalms Christ complains and prays in bodily affliction according to the letter, there, in the same words, every faithful soul, born and trained in Christ, complains and prays, confessing that it has been tempted to sin or has fallen into sin. For to the present day Christ is spitted on, killed, scourged, crucified in us ourselves. Even now there lie in ambush for Him without ceasing the flesh with its feelings, the world with its pleasures, and the devil with his offers and temptations.

From First Lectures on the Psalms, on Psalm 31 (Luther's Works 10:139)
April 16
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