Itinerarium mentis in Deum

In the beginning I invoke the first beginning, from whom all illuminations descend as from the Father of lights, from whom is every best gift and every perfect gift: namely the eternal Father, through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of the same God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and of blessed Francis, our leader and father, he may grant the eyes of our mind to be enlightened, to direct our feet into the way of that peace which surpasses all understanding; which peace our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed and gave; of whose preaching our father Francis was the repeater, announcing peace at the beginning and at the end of every sermon of his, wishing peace in every greeting, sighing in every contemplation for ecstatic peace, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace says, who with those who hated peace was peaceable: Pray for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem. For he knew that the throne of Solomon was only in peace, since it is written: His place was made in peace, and his dwelling in Sion.

Since therefore, after the example of our most blessed father Francis, I, a sinner — who, altogether unworthy, succeed that same most blessed father in the seventh place in the general ministry of the brethren after his passing — sought this peace with panting spirit, it happened that, by a divine prompting, about the thirty-third year after his passing, I withdrew to Mount La Verna as to a quiet place, out of love for seeking peace of spirit; and while there, as I turned over in my mind certain mental ascents to God, there came to me among other things that miracle which happened in that place to blessed Francis himself, namely the vision of a winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. On considering it, it at once seemed to me that that vision set forth the suspension of that father in contemplation, and the way by which one arrives at it.

For by those six wings may rightly be understood six suspensions of illumination, by which the soul is disposed, as by certain steps or journeys, to pass over into peace through the ecstatic transports of Christian wisdom. But the way is only through the most ardent love of the Crucified, who so transformed Paul, rapt to the third heaven, into Christ that he said: I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, now no longer I; Christ lives in me; who also so absorbed the mind of Francis that his mind lay open in his flesh, when for two years before his death he bore in his body the most sacred stigmata of the passion. The figure of the six seraphic wings therefore suggests six stair-like illuminations, which begin from creatures and lead up to God, to whom no one rightly enters except through the Crucified. For he who does not enter by the door, but climbs up another way, he is a thief and a robber. But if anyone enters through this door, he shall go in and out, and find pasture. Wherefore John says in the Apocalypse: Blessed are they who wash their garments in the blood of the Lamb, that their power may be in the tree of life, and they may enter the city through the gates; as if to say that no one can enter the supernal Jerusalem by contemplation unless he enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. For no one is in any way disposed to the divine contemplations which lead to mental transports unless, like Daniel, he be a man of desires. But desires are kindled in us in two ways: namely through the cry of prayer, which makes us roar with the groaning of the heart, and through the splendor of speculation, by which the mind turns itself most directly and intently to the rays of light.

To the groaning of prayer, therefore, through Christ crucified, by whose blood we are cleansed from the filth of vices, I first invite the reader, lest perchance he believe that reading suffices him without unction, speculation without devotion, inquiry without wonder, circumspection without exultation, industry without piety, knowledge without charity, understanding without humility, study without divine grace, the mirror without divinely inspired wisdom. — To you, then, anticipated beforehand by divine grace, humble and godly, compunct and devout, anointed with the oil of gladness, lovers of divine wisdom and inflamed with desire for it, wishing to be free to magnify God, to admire and even to taste him, I propose the following speculations, suggesting that the outward mirror set before us is little or nothing unless the mirror of our mind has been wiped clean and polished. Exercise yourself, therefore, O man of God, first at the sting of a remorseful conscience, before you lift your eyes to the rays of wisdom shining in its mirrors, lest perchance from the very beholding of the rays you fall into a deeper pit of darkness.

It has pleased me to divide the treatise into seven chapters, prefixing titles for easier understanding of what is said. I ask, therefore, that the writer's intention be weighed more than the work, the sense of what is said more than the uncultivated speech, truth more than beauty, the exercise of the affect more than the erudition of the intellect. And for this to come about, the course of these speculations must not be run through cursorily, but ruminated most lingeringly.