Psalm 50:4
the spiritual spin cycle
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. (Psalm 50:4 DR)
Sometimes I’m negligent when doing laundry and will have already run a load through a washing cycle, but then forget to take it out and dry it one way or another. Even though the clothes or towels or blankets have been washed, they cannot just sit there without consequence. If I leave them to long they will be mildewy or moldy and smell worse than when I first put them in, and then I have to wash them all over again.
This by no means a perfect or even necessarily a good analogy, but in the spiritual life we cannot expect to be forgiven of our sins and then just “sit there” like a load of laundry in the washer. For while we are this life the effects of the fall—namely, concupiscence—remain even after baptism and penance. And unless we make aid of God’s graces in the sacraments and strive for virtue, we will get moldy in our hearts, for without grace and virtue we cannot hope to avoid sin. We are like the man cleansed of the demon who sweeps out his house but then eventually has seven more accompany it in the end (cf. Matthew 12:43-45), not because it was bad to be delivered from the demon or to sweep out one’s soul, so to speak, but rather that our hearts cannot exist as a vacuum; something will fill it. We either fill our souls with virtue as we cooperate with God’s grace or we will be filled with evil thoughts and habits and vices. St. Bellarmine explains the Psalmist’s meaning here:
Though the sin may be forgiven, and grace restored, there still remain in man the bad habits of vice, and the very concupiscence of the flesh, that make a man infirm and weak, just as he would be after having recovered from a heavy fit of sickness. The bad habits are gradually corrected by the practice of acts of virtue; but concupiscence, though it can be lessened, ordinarily speaking, is totally eradicated by death alone. And though our own earnest desires and endeavors go a great way to root out our vices, and to diminish our concupiscence, the grace of God, without which we can do nothing, with which we can do everything, is the principal agent therein. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 50, 2.)
The Psalmist is thus not merely repeating his plea for mercy and forgiveness from the previous passage but is asking for the grace to have all vice rooted out of him so that he will not sin again. Such a request is not only not a lack of confidence in God’s mercy but rather perhaps the supreme exemplar of it, for he desires that God not only forgive him (and thus free him from damnation) but also make him like unto God in the likeness of His purity and holiness (cf. Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 5:8). He desires not only the end of the sin in question, but the end of sin completely, which is begun in the sacrament of baptism which removes all Original Sin (cf. Romans 6:2-7) and perfected in the increase of sanctification (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:1) as we pursue virtue.
Returning to the analogy, our sanctification and growth in virtue is like unto moving the washed clothes from the washer to the dryer so that the stagnant moisture which leads to moldiness can be removed; we give it no room to grow but get rid of what is not supposed to be there. We let the fire of God’s charity in our hearts “dry out” our propensity to sin, as it were, so that His grace can purify us:
He, therefore, says, “Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin;” that is to say I confidently hope my sins are blotted out through your grace, and that my soul is washed and cleansed from the filth and stains left upon it by the action of sin; but I ask, beg, and desire to be washed again and again by a fresh infusion of grace, that my soul may thereby be both purified and strengthened. (ibid.)
It is God’s will that we be sanctified (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:3) and thus we can be as confident in this as in the promise of forgiveness in our penitence.
This animation was pretty straightforward, although it took me an astonishingly long time to find a usable image of a washing machine. I cut it out in Photoshop and isolated the washing bin so that I could add in some spinning clothes. I precomped it and added some slight bounce up and down to go along with the spin cycle to give it some heft and compositional presence.
Enjoy.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
(Psalm 50:4 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: