Letter 14: TEMPERANCE

"Lastly, a guardian Elohim -- and there are many of them -- can also be freed. Then it is an entity of the first hierarchy, a Seraphim, who replaces him. It was so for St. Francis of Assisi. The Seraphim who gave him the teaching of the Crucifixion whereby he gained the stigmata -- the Seraphim in the vision of St. Francis -- was his guardian. This is why St. Francis represents more than mankind; what he represents is "divinised humanity" -- this is the God-Man, Jesus Christ himself." --VT

"It will happen that while the soul is inflamed with the love of God...it will feel that a Seraphim is assailing it by means of an arrow or dart which is all afire with love. And the Seraphim pierces and cauterizes this soul which, like a red-hot coal, or better a flame, is already enkindled. And then in this cauterization, when the soul is transpierced with that dart, the flame gushes forth, vehemently and with a sudden ascent...And being wounded by this fiery dart, the soul feels the wound with unsurpassable delight…" (St. John of the Cross, Concerning the stigmata of St. Francis)

"Stigmata"
watercolor  11"x15"