Prologue 1. To begin with, the first principle from Whom all
illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are
given all the best and perfect gifts (James, 1:17), the eternal
Father do I call upon through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that
by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God
Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis,
our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind to
guide our feet into the way of that peace "which surpasses all
understanding" (Eph., 1:17; Luke, 1:79; Phil., 4:7), which peace
our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson
our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the
annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing
for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every
moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which
that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was
peaceable (Ps., 119:7), "Pray ye for the things that are for the
peace of Jerusalem" (Ps., 121:6). For he knew that the throne of
Solomon was nowise save in peace, since it is written, "His place
is in peace and His abode in Sion" (Ps., 75:3). 2. Since, then,
following the example of the most blessed father Francis, I
breathlessly sought this peace, I, a sinner, who have succeeded to
the place of that most blessed father after his death, the seventh
Minister General of the brothers, though in all ways unworthy--it
happened that by the divine will in the thirty-third year after the
death of that blessed man I ascended to Mount Alverna as to a quiet
place, with the desire of seeking spiritual peace; and staying
there, while I meditated on the ascent of the mind to God, amongst
other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same
place to the blessed Francis himself, the vision namely of the
winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. While looking upon
this vision, I immediately saw that it signified the suspension of
our father himself in contemplation and the way by which he came to
it. 3. For by those six wings are rightly to be understood the six
stages of illumination by which the soul, as if by steps or
progressive movements, was disposed to pass into peace by ecstatic
elevations of Christian wisdom. The way, however, is only through
the most burning love of the Crucified, Who so transformed Paul,
"caught up into the third heaven" (II Cor., 12:2), into Christ,
that he said, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross, yet I live,
now not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal., 2:19); who therefore so
absorbed the mind of Francis that his soul was manifest in his
flesh and he bore the most holy stigmata of the Passion in his body
for two years before his death. Therefore the symbol of the
six-winged Seraph signifies the six stages of illumination, which
begin with God's creatures and lead up to God, to Whom no one can
enter properly save through the Crucified. For he who does not
enter by the door but otherwise, he is a thief and a robber (John,
10:1). But if anyone does enter by this door, he shall go in and go
out and shall find pastures (John 9). Because of this John says in
his Apocalypse (22:14), "Blessed are they that wash their robes in
the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the Tree of
Life and may enter in by the gates into the City"; as if he were to
say that one cannot enter into the heavenly Jerusalem through
contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as
through a gate.
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