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Prayers

Late have I loved You: St Augustine’s prayer

From St Augustine’s Confessions, written about AD 400: he grieves the years he spent far from God, and tells how God called him back.

Picture: Raphael, Christ’s Charge to Peter (tapestry cartoon), 1515–16

The words of the prayer

Plain English

Late have I loved You,O Beauty so ancient and so new,late have I loved You!

See, You were within me, and I was outside,and it was out there that I looked for You.Unlovely as I was,I plunged into the lovely things You made.

You were with me, but I was not with You.Those lovely things kept me far from You,yet if they were not in You,they would not exist at all.

You called, You cried out,and You broke through my deafness.You gleamed, You shone,and You drove away my blindness.You spread Your fragrance, and I breathed it in,and now I pant for You.I tasted You, and now I hunger and thirst.You touched me,and I burned for Your peace.

Traditional wording, 1886

Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new!Too late did I love Thee!

For behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there did I seek Thee;I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest.

Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee.Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not.

Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my deafness.Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness.Thou didst exhale odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after Thee.I tasted, and do hunger and thirst.Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Latin, with Pilkington’s 1886 translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: J. G. Pilkington, The Confessions of St. Augustin, 1886.

Pilkington calls God “Fairness”; the Latin word, pulchritudo, means beauty.

When it is said

It is not part of any Orthodox service or prayer book. It comes from the tenth book of St Augustine’s Confessions.

Anyone may pray it at any hour, above all when the past weighs on you and you wish you had turned to God sooner.

Where it comes from

Author known

From his Confessions

St Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote his Confessions about AD 400. In its first books he tells what he was. In the tenth, where this prayer stands, he turns to what he is now. An English edition of 1886 heads the prayer’s chapter “He grieves that he was so long without God”. The Orthodox Church calls him Blessed Augustine and keeps his feast on 15 June.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, tr. J. G. Pilkington (1886); Encyclopaedia Britannica, St. Augustine; Orthodox Church in America, Blessed Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

Where did I find You?

Just before this prayer, St Augustine asks where he found God. Not in his memory, he says, for God was not there before he came to know Him. He found God nowhere but in God Himself, above him. A few lines later he breaks into the words on this page.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, tr. J. G. Pilkington (1886)

What the words mean

Lovely things, and an unlovely man

In Latin, St Augustine calls the things God made “formosa”, which means lovely, and calls himself “deformis”, which means unlovely. The lovely things kept him far from God. Yet they would not exist at all, he says, if they were not in God.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10 (Latin), The Latin Library

All five senses

St Augustine’s last lines run through the five senses. God called, and he heard. God shone, and he saw. God spread His fragrance, and he breathed it in. Augustine tasted, and now he hungers and thirsts. And God touched him.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 10 (Latin), The Latin Library

The Scripture in it

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear in God’s presence?

Psalm 42:1-2 Echoed “I pant for You” and “I thirst”: the psalm’s deer that pants for water, and the soul that thirsts for God.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

Psalm 34:8 Echoed “I tasted You”: taste and see that the Lord is good.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

In Latin

Sero Te amavi, Pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero Te amavi!

Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi Te quaerebam, et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis inruebam.

Mecum eras, et Tecum non eram. Ea me tenebant longe a Te, quae si in Te non essent, non essent.

Vocasti et clamasti et rupisti surditatem meam; coruscasti, splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam; fragrasti, et duxi spiritum et anhelo Tibi; gustavi et esurio et sitio; tetigisti me, et exarsi in pacem Tuam.

From Confessions, Book 10, as printed by The Latin Library, with capitals for God.

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Berean Standard Bible