It is positive and certain.
Your word struck into my heart,
And from that moment I loved you.
Besides this, all about me,
Heaven and earth and all that they contain
Proclaim that I should love you.
But what do I love when I love you?
Not material beauty of a temporal order;
Not the brilliance of earthly light;
Not the sweet melody of harmony and song;
Not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices;
Not manna or honey;
And not limbs the body delights to embrace.
It is not these that I love when I love my God.
And yet, when I love him,
It is true that I love a light of a certain kind,
A voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace;
But they are the kind that I love in my inner self,
When my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space;
When it listens to sound that never dies away;
When it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;
When it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;
When it clings to an embrace from which
It is not severed by fulfillment of desire.
This is what I love when I love my God.
~St. Augustine’s Canticle of Love ; Confessions 10, 6-8.