The mountain path above Trient

"I was in perfect health: we were on our sixth day of tramping, and in good training... I can best describe the condition in which I was by calling it a state of equilibrium. When all at once I experienced a feeling of being raised above myself, I felt the presence of God -- I tell of the thing just as I was conscious of it -- as if his goodness and his power were penetrating me altogether. The throb of emotion was so violent that I could barely tell the boys to pass on and not wait for me. I then sat down on a stone, unable to stand any longer, and my eyes overflowed with tears... Then, slowly, the ecstasy left my heart; that is, I felt that God had withdrawn the communion which he had granted... The state of ecstasy may have lasted four or five minutes, although it seemed at the time to last much longer... I think it well to add that in this ecstasy of mine God had neither form, color, odor, nor taste; moreover, that the feeling of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization... At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was present, though invisible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him."