How little of it my tongue could put into words.

December 18, 2025

As in silence I vigorously pursued my quest, inarticulate sufferings of my heart were loudly pleading for your mercy. You knew what I endured; no human being knew. How little of it my tongue could put into words for the ears of my closest friends! Neither the time nor my powers of speech were sufficient to tell them of the full tumult of my soul. But all of it came to your hearing, how ‘I roared from the groaning of my heart, and my desire was before you, and the light of my eyes was not with me’ (Ps. 37: 9–11). That was inward, while I was still in externals.12 It was not in a place; but I was fixing my attention on things contained in space, and there I found no place to rest in, nor did those external things receive me so that I could say ‘It is enough and it is well’. Nor did they allow me to return where it was enough and well for me. I was superior to these external objects but inferior to you, and you are my true joy if I submit to you, and you have made subject to me what you created to be lower than me.

~ Saint Augustine, Confession, VI (17-19)