Coming to Faith and a Passionate Love of God

Late it was that I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new; late I loved you! And, look, you were with me and I was outside, and there I sought for you and in my ugliness I plunged into the beauties that you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties kept me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all. You called, you cried out, you shattered my deafness: you flashed, you shone, you shattered my blindness, you breathed perfume, and I drew in my breath and I pant for you; I tasted, and I am hungry and thirsty: you touched me, and I burned for your peace.
- St. Augustine of Hippo