Psalm 6:7

there's going to be a lot of tears

I have laboured in my groanings, every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears. (Psalm 6:7 DR)

The irony of sin is that it hold out the promise of freedom while making those who engage in it into slaves. The serpent’s temptation of our first parents was the notion that they could know good and evil by their own lights and become like God, with the supreme irony that they were already like God (being made in His image). The loss of sanctifying grace, rather than freeing them, enslaved them to their passions and appetites such that their intellect and reason—the aspect of their nature which made them like unto God—were darkened and now unable to perfectly order their passions and appetites. Their “freedom” from God’s law was really simply a slavery to sin which was then passed on to their descendants. This slavery becomes a weight, so to speak, which holds the soul to earth and prevents it from ascending to the Beatific Vision. St. Paul encourages his readers who have been freed from this slavery to cast off all sin which remains so they will be unencumbered:

And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us… (Hebrews 12:1 DR)

He goes on to state that the struggle against sin is so important that one must be willing to die rather than to sin (cf. Hebrews 12:4). It is in coming to grips with this bondage to sin and the need to be freed from it that St. Paul elsewhere decries the internal struggle that we daily face:

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do…

For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not…

But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-15, 18-19, 23-25 DR)

St. Paul here gives theological language to what the Psalmist centuries prior describes, for as the latter demonstrates his contrition for sin, he also indicates the daily struggle against the sin that fights against the law of his mind. This is the labor in my groanings, for while he desires to serve God and be pure in heart, he finds in himself the tug of concupiscence towards the things of this world, the fruit of the trees that are good to eat, and fair to the eyes (Genesis 3:6 DR). For even though we can know intellectually that the pleasures of this world are fleeting and can lead us into sin and slavery therein, we are nevertheless still drawn by the the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16 DR). This love of the world is ultimately opposed to the charity of God (cf. 1 John 2:15).

The Psalmist—having described the tug of concupiscence—demonstrates his contrition by washing his bed, which is expanded through parallelism in the second half of the verse by him watering his couch with his tears. This bed of which he speaks holds a multivalent meaning.

It firstly refers to his literal bed, being a metaphor for a nightly examination of conscience. Elsewhere the Psalmist says:

Be angry, and sin not: the things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them upon your beds. (Psalm 4:5 DR)

Night has always been seen as a fitting time for such a recollection of conscience, for just as the morning is a fitting time to rise and praise God as the first act of the day (cf. Psalm 107:2-3), so an examination of conscience is fitting as the last thing one does before lying down to sleep, turning one’s mind to God as the day draws to a close. This bookending of the day with prayer is essential in avoiding sin, making confession and amendment for those committed, and for resolving to leave sin behind in the following day. It is for this reason that in the Office of Compline there is the Confiteor.

The second meaning of this bed is that of concupiscence, for the pleasures of sleep (and the relatively slothful state thereof) are well compared to concupiscence in that we can only shun them with great effort. Just as in the groggy state after waking early gives rise to a desire to retire to one’s bed again, so the deprivation of the pleasures of this life in pursuit of virtue tugs our hearts back to those same pleasures. St. Augustine explains:

That is here called a couch, where the sick and weak soul rests, that is, in bodily gratification and in every worldly pleasure. Which pleasure, whoever endeavours to withdraw himself from it, washes with tears. For he sees that he already condemns carnal lusts; and yet his weakness is held by the pleasure, and willingly lies down therein, from whence none but the soul that is made whole can rise. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 6, 7.)

St. Ambrose poetically captures the necessity of rising early and resisting the siren song of sleep (and thus metaphorically of worldly pleasure) in the beautiful morning hymn Ætérne rerum cónditor:

Surgámus ergo strénue: O let us then like men arise;
Gallus jacéntes éxcitat, The cock rebukes our slumbering eyes,
Et somnoléntos íncrepat, Bestirs who still in sleep would lie,
Gallus negántes árguit. And shames who would their Lord deny.

Tu lux refúlge sénsibus, Shed through our hearts Thy piercing ray,
Mentísque somnum díscute: Our souls’ dull slumber drive away:
Te nostra vox primum sonet, Thy Name be first on every tongue,
Et vota solvámus tibi. To Thee our earliest praises sung.

This is not to say that sleeping in is necessarily a sin, but rather that in our fight against sin and the concupiscence that leads to sin we should expect great bodily effort and resistance. Concupiscence means that we are not dispositionally oriented towards virtue or the attainment thereof; it requires first of all God’s grace but then continual cooperation with that grace. As St. Paul mentioned earlier, our battle against sin may require the shedding of our blood. This may be literal for some, but it is certainly a figure of the bodily chastisement required to resist sin and the constant allure that our concupiscence presents to us. This is why St. Paul says:

But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. (1 Corinthians 9:27 DR)

This is equivalent to the Psalmist expanding upon the first half of the verse by speaking of watering his couch with his tears. This watering speaks to the profusion of contrition, which in and of itself implies the desire and willingness to avoid that which caused the fall in the first place. That is, since we are all allured by concupiscence in ways particular to each (in addition to the general temptations which befall all mankind), we must know ourselves and our failings deeply so that we can know what we are most tempted by and wherein lie our greatest weaknesses so that we can make provision to avoid that which is possible to avoid and to strengthen ourselves against that which we cannot avoid.

This is the interplay of grace and self-discipline, for as grace builds upon nature, God’s grace enables this mastery of ourselves so that we need not be slaves to sin. We are not redeemed so as to continually fall into sin—especially the same sins—but so that we can be freed from them. St. John teaches:

And you know that he appeared to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not; and whosoever sinneth, hath not seen him, nor known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doth justice is just, even as he is just. He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:5-8 DR)

The nightly tears (both literal and metaphorical) with which we regret our sins are the first step towards this freedom from sin, as we recognize our own failings and the need for penance and the grace which flows through the sacrament. The more we cooperate with God’s grace as bountifully extended in the sacraments the more are loosened the shackles of sin and concupiscence which chain us to this world:

“I will drench,” is something more than, “I will wash:” since anything may be washed superficially, but drenching penetrates to the more inward parts; which here signifies weeping to the very bottom of the heart. Now the variety of tenses which he uses; the past, when he said, “I have laboured in my groaning;” and the future, when he said, “I will wash each night my couch;” the future again, “I will drench my bed with tears;” this shows what every man ought to say to himself, when he labours in groaning to no purpose. As if he should say, It has not profited when I have done this, therefore I will do the other. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 6, 7.)

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This passage is all about washing and drenching, and so I thought it would be a great direction to do something water related and go even further. I created this waterscape in After Effects using Trapcode Mir, and got the nice reflections by—shock—turning on the Reflections setting within the plugin. It does take a bit of modifying to get the look right and not go completely overboard (pun vehemently intended), but after playing around with the Specular settings I think it turned out nicely.

Enjoy.

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View a higher quality version of this gif here: