Suddenly the clouds broke away, the sun shone, the church was flooded with light.

Gioacchino paused, saluted the sun, intoned the _Veni Creator_, and led his congregation out to gaze upon the landscape.
It would be by no means surprising if toward 1205 Francis should have heard of this prophet, toward whom so many hearts were turning, this anchorite who, gazing up into heaven, spoke with Jesus as a friend talks with his friend, yet knew also how to come down to console men and warm the faces of the dying at his own breast.
At the other end of Europe, in the heart of Germany, the same causes had produced the same effects.

From the excess of the people's sufferings and the despair of religious souls was being born a movement of apocalyptic mysticism which seemed to have secret communication with that which was rousing the Peninsula.

They had the same views of the future, the same anxious expectation of new cataclysms, joined with a prospect of a reviving of the Church.
"Cry with a loud voice," said her guardian angel to St.Elizabeth of Schonau ([Cross] 1164), "cry to all nations: Woe! for the whole world has become darkness.

The Lord's vine has withered, there is no one to tend it.