Revelations of St. Bridget/Chapter 18. The Crucifixion
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
St. Bridget speaks.
While I was at Mount Calvary weeping bitterly, I beheld my Lord, naked and scourged, led out by the Jews to be crucified, and diligently guarded by them. I then beheld, too, a hole cut in the mountain, and the crucifiers around, ready to perform their cruel work. But my Lord, turning to me, said to me: “ Observe, that in this hollow of the rock was the foot of my cross planted, at the time of my Passion and I immediately saw how the cross was fixed there by the Jews, and fastened firmly in the hollow of the rock of the mountain, with wooden pegs driven in on all sides with mallets, so that the cross should stand solidly, and not fall. Now when the cross was firmly planted there, boards were set around the main piece of the cross like steps, as high up as where the feet of a crucified person would be, so that he and the crucifiers might ascend by these steps, and stand more conveniently on those boards to crucify him. And after this they ascended those steps, leading him with the greatest scoffing and insult. Joyfully ascending, like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, when he was on those steps, he extended his arm, not forced, but voluntarily, and opening his right hand, laid it upon the cross, which his cruel torturers barbarously crucified, driving the nail through the part where the bone was most solid. Then violently drawing his left hand with a rope, they affixed it to the cross in a similar manner. Then stretching his body beyond all bounds, they fastened his joined feet to the cross with two nails, and so violently extended those glorious limbs on the cross, that all the nerves and veins were fairly broken. This done, they replaced on his head the crown of thorns, which they had taken off while affixing him to the cross, and fastened it on his most sacred head. It so wounded his venerable head, that his eyes were filled with the blood that flowed down. His ears, too, were closed, and his face and beard, as it were, covered and stained with that rosy blood.
His crucifiers and the soldiers immediately quickly removed all the boards placed up against the cross, and then the cross remained alone and lofty, and my Lord crucified upon it.
And when I beheld their cruelty, full of grief, then I beheld his most dolorous mother, as it were, trembling and half dead, — John and her sisters, who stood not far from the cross on the right, consoling her. The new pain of compassion for that most holy mother so transfixed me, that I felt as if a sharp sword of insupportable bitterness pierced my heart. At length his dolorous mother rising, as it were, lifeless in body, she looked on her Son, and stood thus supported by her sisters, overwhelmed with stupor, and, as it were, dead alive, pierced with a sword of grief.
When her Son beheld her and his friends weeping, he commended her in a mournful voice to John, and you might discern by his gesture and voice, that from compassion for his mother, his heart was pierced by the most keen dart of immense sorrow. Then his lovely And beautiful eyes took the hue of death; his mouth opened and appeared full of blood; his countenance pallid and sunken, livid and blood-stained; his body also was all livid and pallid, and very languid from the constant stream of flowing blood. The skin also, and virginal flesh of that most holy body, was so delicate and tender, that a livid welt appeared from the slightest blow. Sometimes he endeavored to stretch himself upon the cross, from the excessive bitterness of the intense and acute pain that he endured; for sometimes the pain from his members and pierced veins ascended to his heart, and tortured him cruelly with intense martyrdom, and thus his death was prolonged and dilated, with great torment and bitterness. Overcome by the excessive intensity of pain, and about to expire, he cried to his Father in a loud and mournful voice, saying: “ O Father, why hast thou forsaken me ?” Then his lips were pallid, and his tongue blood-stained; his belly collapsed and clinging to his back, as though he had no bowels within him. Again, then, he cried out in great grief and anguish: “ Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;” and then his head was raised a little, then sank, and he gave up the ghost.
Then his mother seeing this, trembled all over, and would have fallen to the ground in her bitter anguish, had she not been supported by the other women. At that hour, his hands shrunk a little from the place of the piercing, in consequence of the great weight of his body, and it rested almost entirely on the nail with which the feet were attached to the cross. But his fingers, and hands, and arms were more extended than before; his shoulders and back were pressed on the cross.
Finally, all the Jews standing around, mockingly cried against his mother, saying many things; for some said: “Mary, thy Son is dead.” Others spoke other jeering words, and thus, while the crowd stood around, one running up with great fury, plunged a lance into his right side so powerfully, that the lance seemed about to come forth in the opposite side of the body, and when it was drawn out, a very river of blood gushed impetuously from that wound; but the lance-head and part of the handle came forth blood-stained. His mother seeing this, trembled so violently and with bitter groans, that her countenance and manner showed that her soul was then pierced with a keen sword of grief.
After this, when the crowd had departed, his friends took down our Lord, whom his pious mother received in her holy arms, and inclined him, sitting on her knee, all wounded, torn, and livid; and then his dolorous mother wiped his whole body and wounds with her veil, and closed his eyes, kissing them, and wrapped him in a clean winding-sheet, and thus they bore him, with great wailing and grief, and laid him in the sepulchre. — Lib. vii., c. 15.