But when I love you,
what do I love? It is not physical
beauty or temporal glory or the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, or
the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, or the gentle odor of flowers and
ointments and perfumes, or manna or honey, or limbs welcoming the embraces of
the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God. Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and
a kind of embrace when I love my God -- a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of
my innerness, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no
breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can
lessen, where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God. --St. Augustine, Confessions,
X, vi.
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