Augustine’s “Confessions” is perhaps one of the most important works on the spiritual journey that we have. Augustine had one of those “Saul-to-Paul” conversions that transformed him and forever changed the course of his life as well as the church’s.

This small portion from Confessions reads like an intimate lovers letter found nestled beneath the floorboards of a home. Thoughts so powerful and alive with passion and repentance. Words pregnant with something more than information. Phrases of rapture and longing and touch.

The burn of love, the struggle of self and sin, the need for divine consummation, a great way to start your Sunday.

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From Augustine’s Confessions

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 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.