How shall I describe, Lord, the vision of your face?

How shall I speak of your beauty?

How can the sound of any word contain you

    whom the world cannot contain?

How can anyone express the abundance of your love for mankind?

Recently I was sitting comfortably, reading the Scriptures,

A candle flickered beside me,

When the candlelight seemed to embrace me.

Then suddenly I realized that it was you, Lord;

You were embracing me.

Your light and your warmth filled the room,

Your arms held me.

My room on earth had become a room in heaven.

My house had become part of your mansion.

I heard myself crying out from the bottom of my heart,

“Have mercy on me, Master, have mercy on me,

Even though I have never truly served you”.

And as I cried I could feel your mercy.

You were my physician, healing my soul.

Now I recall this visit to my room,

I fall down in adoration.

I know that on this dark, sinful earth

The light of your love is a flickering candle.

But within my soul your divine light shines brightly,

I thank you that you revealed yourself to me.

O Lord, I have seen you!

O Lord, let me see you.

Symeon the New Theologian, 949–1022, Byzantine monk & mystic

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”