The Second Sunday of Easter

This is the introduction to today's sermon on the late arrival of Thomas who misses the sighting of the Risen Christ and comes differently to faith from the route of the other eleven.

Late Have I Loved You: A Prayer of Saint Augustine

Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new,

   late have I loved you!

And behold, you were within me and I was outside,

   and there I sought for you,

   and in my deformity I rushed headlong

   into the well-formed things that you have made.

You were with me, and I was not with you.

Those outer beauties held me far from you,

   yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all.

You called, and cried out to me and broke open my deafness;

   you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness.

You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and

I now pant for you.

I tasted, and I hunger and thirst;

you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine was one of those who arrived late at faith. He, like Job in the Old Testament, wrestled with the problem of suffering, adversity, trial and the sorrow that comes from God's apparent absence in times of trouble.

Born to a Christian mother and a pagan father in the 4^th century, Augustine underwent a profound conversion experience at the age of 32, renouncing his life of sensuality and worldly ambition.

"Late have I loved you," laments a bishop who did not finally yield to faith and baptism till his thirties, whose enthusiasm for the created things of this world held him back from their Creator.

But this prayer comes from a man who, having breathed the fragrance of God's Truth and Beauty, now pants for God and burns for the peace that only the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can provide.  He finds his peace in doing God's will and being his servant.

Perhaps he is a very fit example of “another” Thomas for us.

And Thomas is a sort of Shakespearian “everyman” for us.

In John’s gospel he holds the burden of doubt for us all.