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Summary
- Psalm 51 asks God to “wash me throughly from mine iniquity” and “create in me a clean heart”; the 1928 Book of Common Prayer uses it on Ash Wednesday.
- The New Testament ties cleansing to confession: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
- Traditional prayers quoted: the Collect for Purity and the General Confession (1928 Book of Common Prayer), and the Orthodox “O heavenly King” and “O all-holy Trinity” (Hapgood, 1906).
- Catholics and Orthodox confess to a priest; most Protestants confess to God directly or say a general confession in church.
- A limpia is a Mexican folk cleansing with an egg or herbs; the Catholic Catechism (paragraph 2117) rejects magic and charms “even if this were for the sake of restoring their health.”
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Leviticus 14:4–7; Numbers 19:18; Deuteronomy 18:10–12; Psalm 19:12; 51:1–2, 7, 10–12; 139:23–24; Isaiah 1:18; Mark 11:25; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Philippians 4:8; Hebrews 10:22; James 4:8; 1 John 1:7, 9). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, Psalm 50 (51), heading. Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Morning Prayer, “A General Confession,” p. 6; A Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday, pp. 60–61; Holy Communion, Collect for Purity, p. 67. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The Third Hour, p. 43. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 1424, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P47.HTM; paragraph 2117, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7E.HTM
- Orthodox Church in America. “Penance.” The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship. https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-sacraments/penance
- Valdez, Haley. “Limpia – Mexican Cleansing Ritual.” USC Digital Folklore Archives, 27 April 2022. https://folklore.usc.edu/limpia-mexican-cleansing-ritual/
