O Beauty, so Ancient and so New!

This month I share with you a prayer from St. Augustine:

Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new;
late have I loved you.

For behold you were within me, and I outside;
and I sought you outside and in my ugliness fell
upon those lovely things that you have made.

You were with me and I was not with you.

I was kept from you by those things,
yet had they not been in you, they would not have
been at all.

You called and cried to me and broke upon my deafness;
and you sent forth your light and shone upon me,
and chased away my blindness;

You breathed fragrance upon me,
and I drew in my breath and do now pant for you:

I tasted you and I now hunger and thirst for you;
you touched me, and I have burned for your peace. Amen.

When we get down to basics, our greatest need is to know God, and our greatest task is to make him known. God's greatest gift to us is Himself, and the only gift we may truly bring him is ourselves - all that we have and are!