The Lord wanted me while in this state to see sometimes the following vision: I saw close to me toward my left side an angel in bodily form. I don’t usually see angels in bodily form except on rare occasions; although many times angels appear to me, but without my seeing them, as in the intellectual vision I spoke about before [cf. Life, 27:2, 28:4]
This time, though, the Lord desired that I see the vision in the following way: the angel was not large but small; he was very beautiful, and his face was so aflame that he seemed to be one of those very sublime angels that appear to be all afire. They must belong to those they call the cherubim, for they didn’t tell me their names.
But I see clearly that in heaven there is so much difference between some angels and others and between these latter and still others that I wouldn’t know how to explain it.
I saw in his hands a large golden dart and at the end of the iron tip there appeared to be a little fire. It seemed to me this angel plunged the dart several times into my heart and that it reached deep within me. When he drew it out, I thought he was carrying off with him the deepest part of me; and he left me all on fire with great love of God.
The pain was so great that it made me moan, and the sweetness this greatest pain caused me was so superabundant that there is no desire capable of taking it away; nor is the soul content with less than God.
The pain is not bodily but spiritual, although the body doesn’t fail to share in some of it, and even a great deal. The loving exchange that takes place between the soul and God is so sweet that I beg Him in goodness to give a taste of this love to anyone who thinks I am lying.
On the days this lasted, I went about as though stupefied. I desired neither to see nor to speak, but to clasp my suffering close to me, for to me it was greater glory than all creation.
Saint Teresa of Avila
The Book of Her Life, 29:13–14
Another type of prayer quite frequent is a kind of wound in which it seems as though an arrow is thrust into the heart, or into the soul itself. Thus the wound causes a severe pain which makes the soul moan; yet, the pain is so delightful the soul would never want it to go away. This pain is not in the senses, nor is the sore a physical one, but the pain lies in the interior depths of the soul without resemblance to bodily pain.
Yet, since the experience cannot be explained save through comparisons, these rough comparisons are used (I mean rough when compared to what the experience is); but I don’t know how to describe it any other way. For this reason, these are not things to be written about or spoken of, because it’s impossible to understand them unless one has experienced them. I mention the interior depths this pain reaches because spiritual sufferings are extremely different from physical ones. From this fact, I deduce how much greater the sufferings of souls in hell and purgatory are than what can be understood of them from bodily sufferings here on earth.
Saint Teresa of Avila
Spiritual Testimonies, 59:17