Late have I loved you — St Augustine

A celebrated passage of the Confessions (Book X, ch. 27), written by St Augustine around 398 AD in Hippo. It sums up in the form of a prayer his entire search for God: the beauty who sought him while he sought her outside, in the many. Read in the Liturgy of the Hours (Office of Readings, memorial of St Augustine, 28 August).

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong — I, misshapen.

You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.