St. Augustine Prayer: "Late Have I Loved You" and More

St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote some of the most beautiful prayers in Christian history, many of them in his Confessions, the autobiography he addressed to God as one long prayer. His words “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee” and “Late have I loved Thee” have been prayed by millions searching for God.

Below are the best-known prayers of St. Augustine in E. B. Pusey’s classic translation, a prayer to St. Augustine, and the story of his conversion.

“Our heart is restless” (Confessions I, 1)

The Confessions open with this prayer of praise:

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.

“Late have I loved Thee” (Confessions X, 27)

Augustine’s most famous prayer, looking back on the years he searched for God everywhere except within:

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which Thou hadst made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I drew in breath and panted for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.

In a modern translation the first words are often rendered: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!”

A prayer to St. Augustine

Written for this page:

St. Augustine, you searched for happiness everywhere until you found it in God.
Pray for all who are restless and searching,
for those far from the Church, and for those who teach the faith.
Help me to turn within, where God is waiting,
and to love him with all my heart. Amen.

A prayer for a child who has left the faith

Augustine was brought back to God by the tears and prayers of his mother, St. Monica. Many parents pray to both of them. Written for this page:

St. Monica and St. Augustine,
you know the pain of a soul far from God and the joy of its return.
Pray for my son (daughter), (name).
May the grace that touched Augustine touch his (her) heart,
and may I never stop praying with hope. Amen.

See the St. Monica prayer.

The conversion of St. Augustine

Augustine was born in 354 in Thagaste, in North Africa (present-day Algeria), to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Monica. A brilliant student and teacher of rhetoric, he lived a restless life, kept a mistress for many years and followed the Manichean sect. In Milan he heard the sermons of St. Ambrose and began to search for the truth. In 386, in a garden, he heard a child’s voice singing, “Take up and read,” opened St. Paul’s letter to the Romans and was converted. Ambrose baptized him at the Easter Vigil of 387.

He became a priest and then bishop of Hippo, where he preached, wrote over a hundred books, including The City of God, and defended the faith until his death in 430. He is a Doctor of the Church and the patron of theologians, printers and brewers. His feast is August 28, the day after his mother’s.

Frequently asked questions

What is St. Augustine’s most famous prayer?

“Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new” (Confessions X, 27), and the line “our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee” (Confessions I, 1).

Did St. Augustine write “Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit”?

That prayer is commonly attributed to him, but it is not found in his known works.

What is St. Augustine the patron saint of?

Theologians, printers, brewers, and people seeking conversion.

More saints and prayers

Texts and sources

St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. E. B. Pusey (1838), Books I.1 and X.27, public domain (Project Gutenberg).
The prayers to St. Augustine and for a child were written for this page.