Have You Ever Seen Anything So Horrible?

                                                                                                          It is related by Brother Giles that one day, when he was praying in his cell, the devil appeared to him in so frightful a shape, that the Brother lost the power of speech, and thought his last hour has come. As his lips could not utter a sound, he raised his heart in humble supplication to God, and the apparition vanished…. When relating what had befallen him to brother-monks, he trembled from head to foot as he described the hideous aspect of the adversary of mankind. Then going to St. Francis, he asked the question: “Father, have you ever seen anything in this world, the sight of which was so horrible that it was enough to kill anyone who beheld it?” And the saint replied: “I have indeed seen such a thing; it is none other than the devil, whose aspect is so loathsome that no one could gaze upon it even for a short time and live unless God specially enabled him to do so.”

St Thomas Aquinas, Ora Pro Nobis.