Thursday 5 September 2013

DESIRE

'When you would fill a purse, knowing how large a present it is to hold, you stretch wide its cloth or leather: knowing how much you are to put in it, and seeing that the purse is small, you extend it to make more room. So by delaying [his gift] God strengthens our longing, through longing he expands our soul, and by expanding our soul he increases its capacity. So brethren, let us long, because we are to be filled...That is our life, to be trained by longing: and our training through the holy longing advances in the measure that our longings are detached from the love of this world...Let us stretch ourselves out towards him, that when he comes he may fill us full.' 
Augustine of Hippo in Christopher West, Fill These Hearts, p.77.