Pause for Prayer: FRIDAY 8/28

It's never too late to love God... 

Saint Augustine, whose feast we celebrate today, came to love God late in his life but understood that it's never too late to love God.  

Consider the words he prayed:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you! And look! You were within me, and I was outside myself: and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created: you were with me, but I was not with you. Those created things kept me far away from you: yet if they had not been in you, they would have not been at all. You called and shouted: and broke through my deafness. You flamed and shone: and banished my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me: and I drew in my breath and I pant for you. I have tasted you: and now I hunger and thirst for more. You have touched me: and I have burned for your peace.  (The Confessions, book 10, chapter 27, translated by Carolyn J. B. Hammond, Carolyn J. B.  Click here for other translations.)

At first glance, the words of his prayer may seem too much: too pious, too poetic, too romantic.  But these words capture the experience all of us have in responding to God's love through the years, the decades of our lives.  

Spend a little time with them and you'll find yourself in Augustine's prayer...

Here's a beautiful musical setting (from Schola Ministries) of Augustine's Late have I loved Thee (translated and composed by Kathleen Deignan, CND).

 

Sero Te Amvi by Kathleen Deignan

 

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(For those not familiar with Latin, the first three lines find their translation in the fourth and fifth.)

Sero te amavi,
pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova.
Sero te amavi!
Late have I loved Thee,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new!

I was searching all around me; You were all within.

I grasped at your beauty everywhere
and longed to have and hold what can but be beheld.
Sero te amavi!

You attracted, I, distracted, did not see
the Giver of all gifts was gracing me.

Sero te amavi!

You called, you shouted – piercing through my deafness;
You flashed, you shone – dispelling all my blindness.
Sero te amavi!

You breathed your fragrance on me,
I drew my breath and now I am breathless for Thee.
I tasted your sweetness and now I am famished for You –
You touched me; now I am burning for your peace.
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new!
I was searching all around me; You were all within.
Sero te amavi! Vero te amavi…

With Augustine, ask the Lord to call, to shout, to pierce your deafness; to flash, to shine, to dispel your blindness; to breathe on you and in your heart; to touch your life with his love - that you might come to love him...  

And remember: it's never too late!

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