found Him already dead. Hence there was no need to break His legs. Fearing, however, that some vestige of life might still remain in Him, one of the soldiers pierced His side[1] with a spear, and immediately blood and water[2] came forth.
There was among the secret disciples of Jesus a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea[3], a member of the council[4]. He went to Pilate and asked for the Body of Jesus, that he might bury it. Pilate granted his request. Then Joseph, together with Nicodemus[5], took down [6] the Sacred Body from the Cross, and wrapped it up, with costly aromatic spices, in a linen shroud.
It so happened that Joseph had a garden near the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new sepulchre, hewn from the rock, wherein no one had yet been buried. In
- ↑ Pierced His side. The opening made by the lance was so wide and deep that Thomas was able to put his hand in it (see chapter LXXXI). The spear reached the Sacred Heart of Jesus and pierced it through, for the intention was to inflict an absolutely mortal wound, supposing that Jesus had been still alive. But there was no life left in our Crucified Lord, as was proved to the soldiers by the outpouring of blood and water, which was a clear sign of death. To the four sacred wounds which Jesus bore in His Hands and Feet, there was now added a fifth, in His Side. This was about four o’clock in the afternoon. The bodies of the two thieves were thrown into an empty pit near at hand, and the Sacred Body of our Lord would have been thrown in there likewise had not His disciples, in union with His holy Mother, provided another and more honourable burial for it.
- ↑ Blood and water. The water and the blood that flowed from the Side of Jesus are figures of two great Sacraments; the blood referring to the Holy Eucharist, and the water to Holy Baptism.
- ↑ Arimathea. A town to the north-west of Jerusalem (see Map).
- ↑ The council. Or the Sanhedrin. Scripture says that "he had not consented to their counsel and doings” against Jesus, "because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews”. Now, however, he came forward openly as a disciple of the Crucified One, and besought Pilate that he might take away the Body of Jesus.
- ↑ Nicodemus. "Who at the first came to Jesus by night” (see chapter XV). Nicodemus helped Joseph both to take down our Lord’s Body from the Cross, and to bury it. It stands to reason that our Lord’s holy Mother, as also St. John and Mary Magdalen were there.
- ↑ Took down. And laid Him in the arms and on the knee of His Mother. His Head rested on her breast as it used to do in the days of His infancy, no longer, however, in sleep, but in death. Mary contemplated the countless wounds of her beloved Son with unspeakable and silent grief. Magdalen fell on her knees, and for the second time (see chapter XXV) clung to, kissed, and wept over the Feet of her Lord. Then Joseph and Nicodemus took the Body from the Mother’s arms, wrapped it in a new clean linen cloth, inside which they laid about a hundred pounds’ weight of sweet smelling spices, myrrh and aloes. They postponed the real embalming of the Body to another day, for time failed them now, as the Sabbath began with the setting of the sun.
