nails, and the joints of thy limbs stretched as on a rack ! Oh, with what love and sweetness of charity didst thou suffer thy hands and feet to be pierced through, whence, as from a fountain, thy precious blood gushed out.
14. O good and gracious Jesus ! who, hanging on the cross between two thieves, wast assailed with blasphemies, and after so long a continuance of thy tortures, prayedst to thy Father to forgive them: and even when their fury was at the highest, didst exercise the greatest bounty, promising Paradise to the repenting thief, and bequeathing thy dearly beloved Mother (who, pierced with sorrow, stood by the cross,) to thy beloved disciple, St. John, and in him to us all; and after thou hadst suffered for three long hours intolerable pains and extreme thirst, they gave thee vinegar to drink, which when thou hadst tasted, bowing down thy venerable head, thou gavest up thy spirit.
15. O good and gracious Jesus ! O good Shepherd! thus thou bestowedst thy life for thy sheep, and even after death still thou wouldst suffer for us, the sacred side of thy dead body being opened with a spear, out of which flowed water and blood. Thus at last ended all thy sufferings; and thy enemies having slaked their thirst for thy blood, and being gone away, thy disciples came and took thy immaculate body down from the cross, reposed it on the knees of thy blessed Mother, and after all imaginable expressions of piety, reverence and love, wrapped it up in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre.
PRAYER.
O MILD and innocent Lamb of God, thus heartily thou didst love me, these things thou didst for
