dei desiderium in corde hominis est inscriptum

desire for god is inscribed ion the heart of man

This phrase may be used in one of two meaning: either the longing—the desire—that man innately has for god; or the same desire that god has for man. Regardless of its application, the central point of this phrase is desire—or, as imbued in Augustine’s Confessions, the desiderium sinus cordis (‘the longing that makes the heart deep’). This takes the form of thirst for transcendence, of longing for true beauty, a yearning for infinitude that no ‘thing’ can fully satisfy. C.S. Lewis would word it magnificently:

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

—The Weight of Glory

If man longs for this beauty, it is perhaps because he has already encountered it. Pascal, in his Pensées would say, Tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m’avais trouvé ^[1]Pensée n° 8H r° (Laf. 919, Sel. 751), (“You would not look for me if you had not already found me”, and then, Tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne me possédais. Ne t’inquiète donc pas.^[2] n° 13N (Laf. 929, Sel. 756)   (“You would not look for me if you didn’t already possess me”). The giver is mysteriously present in the gift; and how easily we can mistake them both in our thirst. It doesn’t take much effort to see that man is in constant journey, a quest to answer the most basic existential questions that may go unasked by the mind but never by our life.

The word “desire,” derived from the Latin sides, “star,”  suggests hitching your heart to a star, bringing star-gazing into a whole new dimension. The not-yet keeps our quest restless. The already keeps that restlessness healthy. Augustine’s famous reponse to the question “What do I love when I love god?” can illuminate our approximation to “desire:”

“It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odor of flowers, and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor 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, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.”

What does our desire thirst for?