The reflection below is the prayer that begins the opening chapter of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Perhaps the most famous work of devotion, this book is part, on-going prayer, reflection, story, and – well – confession. Today we use these words to consider the unexpected ways God meets us, resides with us, holds us in company, and provides us with support and comfort and grace.

You are great Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and to your wisdom there is no end. And humans, being part of your creation, desire to praise you – humans, who carry with us our mortality, the witness of our sin and the witness that you resist the proud. Yet, humanity, this part of your creation, desires to praise you, for you have formed us for yourself; and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.

O how will I call on God, my God and Lord, since when I call for him, I will be calling him into myself? And what room is there within me, where my God can come into me? Where can God come into me, God who made heaven and earth? Is there, indeed, O Lord my God, anything in me that can contain you?

Since you fill heaven and earth do they contain you? Or, because nothing which exists could exist without you, does therefore whatever exists contain you? Since then, I too exist, why do I seek that you should enter me. I would not be if you were not in me. Why? Because I am not gone down in hell, and yet you are there also. For if I go down into hell, you are there. I could not be then, O my God, could not be at all, if you were not in me; or rather, unless I were in you, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things! Even so, Lord, even so. From where should I call you, since I am in you? Or where can you enter me? For where can I go beyond heaven and earth, that there my God should come into me, who has said, “I fill the heaven and the earth?”

O God, the vessels which you fill do not contain you, since though we were broken, you were not poured out. You were not cast down, but you uplift us. You are not scattered, we are drawn together.

You are invited to silently lift the names of particular people or situations that weigh heavily on your soul at this time. 

We seal these prayers with the one he taught us, saying together:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and power and the glory, Amen.