You are great, O Lord,
and greatly to be praised:
great is your power
and your wisdom is without measure.
And man, so small a part of your creation,
wants to praise you: this man,
though clothed with mortality
and bearing the evidence of sin
and the proof that you withstand the proud.
Despite everything, man,
though but a small a part of your creation,
wants to praise you.
You yourself encourage him
to delight in your praise,
for you have made us for yourself,
and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
[St Augustine, Conf 1, 1, 1:PL 32, 659-661] 30

The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us "to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace", [Eph 1:5-6] for "the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God." [St Irenaeus, Adv haeres 4, 20, 7:Pg 7/1, 1037] The ultimate purpose of creation is that God "who is the creator of all things may at last become "all in all", thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude." [Ad Gentes 2; 1 Cor 15:28] 294

2639 Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, [Rom 8:16] testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the "one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist." [1 Cor 8:6]