Late have I loved you

Two versions of the 2nd reading of week 1

From Confessions 10, Early Will I Seek You, compiled by David Hazard

Late have I loved you, 0 Beauty so ancient and so new. Late have I loved you!

You were within me, while I was outside of myself. I was searching for you in all the outward joys and beauties. And all I found was loneliness.

Then I fell and was broken by those same lovely things which I sought-things that you yourself made. Yet you were with me, while I was not with you. I was being kept from you by my hunger for the world’s lovely things. I did not even recognize that all the things I sought had been created by Someone, or they would not exist at all.

Then you called me and cried to me and broke through my deafness! You sent forth your beam, the light of your magnificently beautiful presence. You shone your Self upon me to drive away my blindness. You breathed your fragrance upon me … and in astonishment I drew my breath … now I pant for you! I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for you.

You touched me-and I burn to live within your peace.

From Augustine. The Confessions: A Translation for the 21st Century, By Maria Boulding, O. S. B. (New City Press. Kindle Edition), X.27.38

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 would 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.