The moment had certainly arrived for accomplishing the high designs of Providence, for Francis through prayer, fasting, and constant contemplation on the Passion of Christ, had become like some spiritual being untrammelled by the bonds of the flesh. It was on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross while praying on the mountain side, that the marvellous vision was vouchsafed to him. The dawn had hardly broken when "he beheld a Seraph who had six wings, which shone with such splendour that they seemed on fire, and with swift flight he came above the face of the Blessed Francis who was gazing upwards to the sky, and from the midst of the wings of the Seraph appeared suddenly the likeness of a man crucified with hands and feet stretched out in the manner of a cross, and they were marked with wounds like those of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and two wings of the said Seraph were above the head, two were spread as though flying, and two veiled the whole body."[43] Flames of fire lit up the mountains and the valley during the vision, and some muleteers seeing "the bright light shining through the windows of the inn where they slept, saddled and loaded their beasts thinking the day had broke." When Francis rose from his knees and looked up to the sky where the seraph had been and where now the sun was rising over the Casentino and her steepled towns, he bore on his body the marks of the Crucified. His hands and feet appeared as though pierced through with nails, the heads being on the inside of the hands and on the upper part of the feet, while blood flowed from the wound in his side. Thus transformed by his surpassing love for Christ, Francis returned to his four companions and recounted to them his vision, trying all the while out of his deep humility to hide from them the signs of the Stigmata. Before returning to Assisi he bade them a final farewell, for he knew this was the last time he would come with them to La Vernia. The scene is beautifully pictured in a letter of Fra Masseo, which, as far as we know, is here translated for the first time.
"Brother Masseo, sinner, and unworthy servant of Jesus Christ, companion of Brother Francis of Assisi, man most dear unto God, peace and greetings to all brethren and sons of the great patriarch Francis, standard-bearer of Christ.