But in all this nothing is so wonderful as that admirable communication which the sweet Jesus made him of his loving and precious pains, by the impression of his wounds and stigmata. Theotimus, I have often pondered this wonder, and have made this conception of it. That great servant of God, a man wholly seraphical, beholding the lively picture of his crucified Saviour, represented in a shining seraph, who appeared unto him upon Mount Alverno, was touched beyond what could be imagined, being taken with a sovereign consolation and compassion, in beholding this bright mirror of love, which the angels cannot satisfy themselves in beholding. But seeing also the lively representation of the marks and wounds of his Saviour crucified, he felt in his soul the merciless sword which transfixed the sacred breast of the virgin-mother on the day of the passion, with as much interior pain as though he had been crucified with his dear Saviour. Now the soul, as the form and mistress of the body, exercising her authority over it, impressed the pains of the wounds with which she was struck, on the parts corresponding to those wherein her beloved had endured them.
Love is admirable in sharpening the imagination to penetrate to the exterior.
In Laban's ewes the imagination had a corporal effect upon the lambs, and the imagination of human mothers affects their children. A strong imagination makes a man become grey in one night, and disturbs his health and all his humours. So the seraph seeing that Isaias did not dare to speak, because he perceived his lips defiled, came in the name of God to touch and purify his lips with a burning coal taken from off the altar, seconding in this sort his desire. The myrrh tree brings forth its gum and first liquor by way of sweat and transpiration, but that it may let out all its juice, it must be helped by incision. For not only at that instant, but also his whole life after, this poor Saint went pining and languishing, as sick with very love.