Ver. 16.—'I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and I have covered my flesh with ashes.' 22. The Church teaches to cleanse sins by voluntary affliction. What ought to be understood by sackcloth and ashes but penance, and what by skin and flesh but the sin of the flesh? When therefore certain persons, after a fall of the flesh, return to penance, sackcloth is as it were sewed upon the skin, and the flesh is covered with ashes, because the guilt of the flesh is covered by penance, lest it should be seen unto vengeance at the examination of the strict Judge.
But when holy Church draws her weak members back from sins and leads them to the remedy of penance, she without doubt aids them with weeping, that they may recover strength to receive the grace of their Author; and through the strong she laments what she did not do, that which in her weak members she as it were herself did. Whence it is well further subjoined: