NIGHT PRAYER: Monday 2/14

Your love for me is always perfect, Lord,

    while my love for you often stumbles, stalls and fails...

 

You love me freely and fully,

      with patience and with mercy;

I hold back on my affection, devotion,

    my gratitude and prayer...

 

You created me for love, Lord:

    to love and to be loved,

    to find in you, my heart of hearts,

    the peace for which I long...

My Valentine for you, Lord,

is anything but perfect:

    it's smudged by my transgressions,

    torn by my rough edges,

    wrinkled by my carelessness

    - and late in being sent...

Still, this note's directly from my heart:

   signed by one who loves you,

   sealed with my contrition,

   and delivered with my thanks

      for your always faithful, 

      never ending, perfect love for me... 

I know you have a heart for me

and so I'm bold enough to pray:

    Be my Valentine, Lord,

    and receive the heart I offer you tonight... 

 

Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake,

keep vigil while I sleep

that awake, I might keep watch with you

and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.

(Tonight's song is Kathleen Deignan's beautiful setting of

Saint Augustine's prayer, "Late have I love you, Lord..."

 

Sero Te Amvi by Kathleen Deignan

 

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(The first three lines in Latin are translated in 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,
pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova.
Sero te amavi!
Late have I loved thee,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.

 
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'm 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…
(Late have I loved Thee!  Truly have I loved thee...)

         

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