It is never too late to rediscover beauty and art, as Saint Augustine reminds us. Augustine, a philosopher and theologian, expressed his belated love for God with the simple and sincere heart of a lover. In his “Confessions,” he speaks of beauty as the supreme expression of God, a category often neglected in favor of concepts like goodness, truth, and justice in the centuries that followed. Today, defining beauty is challenging, as our time is dominated by superficial images that rarely reveal the true essence of things. However, to understand beauty, we must listen, and music can be an excellent guide, allowing us not only to know it but to experience it directly.
Music connects us with our feelings and perceptions and enables us to experience the beauty that eternally generates life. This book, dear reader, is a passionate attempt by those who live immersed in beauty, seeking it, understanding it, narrating it, and sharing it, to demonstrate that it is never too late to love the beauty of life given by God. Through the meeting of poets and musicians, the work shows that beauty, like music, embraces everyone and wants to be heard by all.
This project originates from a fundraising dinner for a school in Uganda that welcomes women and children fleeing from war, restoring their dignity and hope. The idea of dedicating one’s work and passion to telling the origin of that goodness was inspired by the testimony of an Italian aid worker. Sacred music, defined by its liturgical or biblical texts, has the power to bring people closer to God and to each other through emotions. This project aims to explore spirituality as a search for the meaning of life by combining sacred texts with personal or communal experiences, thanks to the collaboration of poets and musicians.
Since Christmas 2017, the group has been addressing contemporary themes such as migration, the pandemic, ecology, and the quest for truth and God, including historical texts like Dante’s “Virgin Mother” and Saint Augustine’s prayer “Late Have I Loved You.” Each piece invites us to pause the frenetic pace of life to listen to the deeply human message filled with rediscovered and shared beauty. Even if some may feel they are late in recognizing the need for beauty, it is never too late to love the beauty of life bestowed by God.