respect
that he uttered a few years later this cry of a mysticism that has never
been equalled: "I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live ... or
rather, it is not I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." This
utterance is not an isolated exclamation with him, it is the very centre
of his religious consciousness, and he goes so far as to say, at the
risk of scandalizing many a Christian: "I fill up in my body that which
is lacking of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is
the Church."

Perhaps it has not been useless to enter into these thoughts, to show to
what point Francis during the last years of his life, where he renews in
his body the passion of Christ, is allied to the apostolic tradition.

In the solitudes of the Verna, as formerly at St. Damian, Jesus
presented himself to him under his form of the Crucified One, the man of
sorrows.[16]

That this intercourse has been described to us in a poetic and inexact
form is nothing surprising. It is the contrary that would be surprising.
In the paroxysms of divine love there are _ineffabilia_ which, far from
being able to relate them or make them understood, we can hardly recall
to our own minds.

Francis on the Verna was even more absorbed than usual in his ardent
desire to suffer for Jesus and with him. His days went by divided
between exercises of piety in the humble sanctuary on the mountain-top
and meditation in the depths of the forest. It even happened to him to
forget the services, and to remain several days alone in some cave of
the rock, going over in his heart the memories of Golgotha. At other
times he would remain for long hours at the foot of the altar, reading
and re-reading the Gospel, and entreating God to show him the way in
which he ought to walk.[17]

The book almost always opened of itself to the story of the Passion, and
this simple coincidence, though easy enough to explain, was enough of
itself to excite him.

The vision of the Crucified One took the fuller possession of his
faculties as the day of the Elevation of the Holy Cross drew near
(September 14th), a festival now relegated to the background, but in the
thirteenth century celebrated with a fervor and zeal very natural for a
solemnity which might be considered the patronal festival of the
Crusades.

Francis doubled his fastings and prayers, "quite transformed into Jesus
by love and compassion," says one of the legends. He passed the night
before the festival