Sanabitur Anima Mea

Domine, non sum dignus,
ut intres sub tectum meum:
sed tantum dic verbo
et sanabitur anima mea.

Translation:

Lord, I am not worthy
that Thou shouldest enter under my roof:
but only say the word,
and my soul shall be healed

This prayer is said at communion in the Catholic Church, although in the newer rite the (less accurate) translation used is “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the world and I shall be healed.” The origin of the prayer is in this Luke's Gospel, where a centurion asks for Jesus to heal his servant.

I have been mentally ill for a long time now and obsessively guilty because of it (or perhaps mentally ill because I am obsessively guilty.) I cannot let go of the bad things I did in the past (some heinous and some trivial.) And the present feels like an impossible obstacle course of temptation. I have taken every rule in the book and twisted and augmented it until it is impossible to keep them. Hell is lurking around every corner – waiting for me if I genuflect on the wrong knee, if I don’t buy fair-trade bananas, if I walk past a Big Issue seller, if I think about sex with anything other than disgust, if I swear or let myself think of swearing, if I sleep when I should be praying, if I get angry with God for making His commandments so exhaustingly hard…

I cannot keep the rules, or if I can I’m too lazy to do it. But I can make up for it. If my scars are deep enough, I will be like Him. I will wash my sins away in a cleansing tide of pain and I shall be holy. I will be able to meet the accusing eyes staring down from the crucifix. He says we must worship Him in spirit and in truth, not just keep a good surface, not just keep the letter of the law. And I can’t even manage the letter. Cut deeper, let the match burn my skin for longer and this failure ceases to matter. “He likes to watch you suffer”, I tell myself “If He didn’t He wouldn’t ask so much.” Then more cuts as a punishment for thinking that. If I delight Him with enough blood, it will cancel out all the bad things.

I am not worthy. I am not worthy. I am not worthy. I shall never be worthy. Even if I keep the rules perfectly, never slip up, never even let an imperfect thought pass through my skull. I shall never be worthy. I shall never stand equally, eye-to-eye with a perfect, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God. Mary was Immaculate. She kept the rules in their letter and their spirit, exactly, perfectly, inwardly, outwardly, for every moment. Perfect, but not worthy. The handmaid of the Lord. So perfect and so utterly, utterly small. He could have come without her. He was omnipotent; He needed nobody. Why travel economy in the womb of a teenage Jewish peasant when He could soar down first class in a chariot of fire? Nevertheless, He chose that womb. He chose to live with us and die with us, to live like us and die like us, to live for us and die for us. Why? God only knows, but He did.

He doesn’t want us or need us or expect us to be worthy. He only wants us to say the word and be healed. That doesn’t mean just saying “Jesus, save me” and getting magically saved and the story being over. It doesn’t mean that anyone will be saved by “just” believing. I need to ask Him to say the word with my whole self. With every thought and word and everything I do, I need to try to follow Him, because I need to trust Him absolutely and believe that His words and example will lead to holiness and healing. I need to be constantly welcoming Him under my roof. However, I don’t need to worry that I am perpetually failing. I am not the one whose success is required.

All that sounds very nice, but I can’t believe it. Hell is still waiting for me around every corner, as far as my mind is concerned. My soul is still doomed unless I break out the razor blades and cancel it all out. I chant to myself “I am bad. I am bad. I am bad.” I have no idea how to stop. I am miserable. Sometimes I fantasise about dying but I’m afraid Hell will come for me if I do it myself. I feel like there is no hope for me in this world or the next and I make pretty words to tell myself that it’s all alright and Jesus loves me. I know that my pretty words have more logic than my fears, even if they aren’t completely logical. But none of this helps. I can’t get myself out.

Domine, non sum digna,
ut intres sub tectum meum:
sed tantum dic verbo
et sanabitur anima mea.