"Remembering Jerusalem"

The New Jerusalem as bride of the lamb, Walters Manuscript W.917, fol. 206v

One thing I asked of the Lord,
   that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
   all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
   and to inquire in his temple. (Ps. 27:4)

I will 'enter my chamber' and will sing you songs of love, groaning with inexpressible groanings on my wanderer's path, and remembering Jerusalem with my heart lifted up toward it--Jerusalem, my home land, Jerusalem, my mother, and above it yourself, ruler, illuminator, father, tutor, husband, pure and strong delights and solid joy and all good things to an unexpressible degree, all being enjoyed in simultaneity because you are the one supreme and true Good.  I shall not turn away until in that peace of this dearest mother, where are the firstfruits of my spirit and the source of my certainties, you gather all that I am from my dispersed and distorted state to reshape me and strengthen me for ever, 'my God my mercy.' (Augustine, Conf. 12.26.23, trans. H. Chadwick)

In the midst of defending his understanding of Genesis 1:1 as one of many true interpretations, Augustine is drawn into this rhapsodic confession.  He was considering whether it is true to interpret the "heavens" God created in the beginning as "the heaven of heavens," that is, Heaven, the spiritual House of God, wherein the beauty of the triune Lord is perpetually beheld.  And now, in the midst of defending his view against potential critics, he breaks off, suddenly, into a love song to his Lord.

Like the psalmist, the "one thing" Augustine asks is "to behold the beauty of the Lord" in his House (Ps. 27:4).  Wandering as he is in the world devastated by sin, he groans like one homesick to enter that state of rest and peace.  Now he is dispersed in the flux of time, finding himself tending toward nothingness.  Now he fleetingly knows the stability of that House, when he lifts up his heart contemplation or in the sursum corda of the liturgy.  But he longs for the Lord to gather his dispersed self together in the heavenly City, that he might "behold the beauty of the Lord" forever.

Augustine's desire is to find his rest, his fulfillment, his life, in the triune Lord.  His desire, to be sure, is to gaze upon the Creator, the Beauty of all things beautiful.  But it is also a desire to be gazed on as the Lord's beloved, and so to find himself gathered together, enfolded in the eternal embrace of Love.  Until that Day--when he will know, even as he has been known (1 Cor. 13:12)--, he will not be fully himself.