The Logic and Lyric of Contrition

Abstract

“[T]aken quite literally, the phrase, ‘there is no health in us’ exaggerates. There must be some spiritual health in us for us even to notice that we are sinners, and still more for us to care about that fact (contrition is a Christian virtue). But the lyric of contrition, like any other lyric, affords a certain license; having a poetic quality, good prayers do not have to be precise theology at every turn. However uncomfortable we may feel with it, the phrase expresses quite excellently that we have fallen very far short of the glorious life to which God has called us—that we are badly spoiled, even if not quite completely.”