“Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. You were within me, and I without… You were with me, and I was not with you… You called me, and your cry broke through my deafness” (X, 27.38).
The above words, now so well known and so often quoted, appeared in the Office of Readings yesterday 27 May 2015. They were written by St Augustine in his ‘Confessions’.
As I read the passage aloud, the words tugged once more at my heart strings. They had done so some years ago, but I realised that one can keep yearning and longing for a closer walk with our Lord. It is perfectly natural once one has tasted of His mercy, His goodness and experienced powerfully His love, so deep, so infinite, so unconditional too.
And to think that this sad situation continues
There are those who are content to sit on the fence
They wait and they wait, and sometimes they wait forever
Never ever seizing the chance to say ‘Late have I loved you, Lord’
There are those foolish enough not to realise that time is not ours
Not ours to control surely as we all live on borrowed time
So we may never find it too soon to say ‘Late have I loved you, Lord’
It is never too late to say I love you, Lord
It is never too late to say I really care
It is never too late to say I am sorry
But it is true, and I say again . . . It is true
For You, dearest Lord, await the lost and the stray ones
And then You found me
And now, with St Augustine, I cry out
Late have I loved you
Late have I loved you
Many writers 