Another day, another long assigned reading, and more enlightening nuggets of wisdom. These lines were written by St. Augustine, who was born in 354 AD and converted to Christianity at age 33.
Great are you, O Lord. Great is your goodness and your wisdom is incalculable.
Those who seek the Lord will praise him. Certainly when I do invoke him in a prayer, I shall be summoning him into my very being. What place is there in me where my God may enter in, where that same God who made heaven and earth may enter into me?
The house of my soul is too narrow for you to enter it; it needs you to widen it. It is in ruins: rebuild it. It contains things that will displease your eyes: I admit it, I know it. But who will cleanse it? Who else can I cry to, if not to you?
But you, Lord, live for ever, and nothing in you dies, for before the beginning of time, and before everything which can be described as before, you yourself exist, and you are God and Lord of everything which you have made.
Tell me O god, I beg you; in your mercy, tell me, pitiable creature that I am, did my infancy come after some other period of my existence, which is now extinct? Did I exist somewhere? Was I someone at all? I have none to explain this to me. Can anyone be the artist of their own creation?
How do I even dare to say that you were silent, my God, when I was the one withdrawing from you? A mist was cutting me off from the brightness of your truth, while my wickedness was over flowing in its abundance. Look, O God, and see my heart, see my heart!
The attractions of those who are immortal long to be found desirable; but nothing is more truly attractive than your love, and nothing that we find desirable can be more wholesome than your truth. Where can true safety be found except in you?
Cast yourself upon him! Do not be afraid! He will not step away and let you fall, so cast yourself upon him without fear! He will pick you up and heal you.
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