Lady Bridget had this revelation in the holy city of Jerusalem, the first time that she
was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In it, Christ declares the pardon and
grace that good pilgrims have in the said church when they come there with a right
intention and a holy purpose.
The Son spoke to the bride: "When you people entered my temple, which was
dedicated with my blood, you were as cleansed of all your sins as if you had at that
moment been lifted from the font of baptism. And because of your labors and
devotion, some souls of your relatives that were in purgatory have this day been
liberated and have entered into heaven in my glory. For all who come to this place
with a perfect will to amend their lives in accord with their better conscience, and
who are not willing to fall back into their former sins, will have all their former sins
completely forgiven; and they will have an increase of grace to make progress."
Chapter Fifteen
This vision Lady Bridget saw in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
the chapel of Mount Calvary, on the Friday after the octave of the Ascension of the
Lord, when, caught up in spirit, she saw the whole passion of the Lord in
painstaking detail, as it is here contained at greater length.
While I was at Mount Calvary, most mournfully weeping, I saw that my Lord,
who was naked and scourged, had been led by the Jews to his crucifixion. He was
being guarded by them diligently. I then saw too that a certain hole had been cut
into the mount and that the crucifiers were round about and ready to work their
cruelty. The Lord, however, turned toward me and said to me: "Be attentive; for in
this hole in the rock the foot of the cross was fixed at the time of my passion." And
at once I saw how the Jews were there fixing and fastening his cross firmly in the
hole in the rock of the mount with bits of wood strongly hammered in on every side
in order that the cross might stand more solidly and not fall.
Then, when the cross had been so solidly fastened there, at once wooden
planks were fitted around the trunk of the cross to form steps up to the place where
his feet were to be crucified, in order that both he and his crucifiers might be able
to ascend by those plank steps and stand atop the planks in a way more convenient
for crucifying him. After this, they then ascended by those steps, leading him with
the greatest of mockery and scolding. He ascended gladly, like a meek lamb led to
the slaughter. When he was finally on top of those planks, he at once, willingly and
without coercion, extended his arm and opened his right hand and placed it on the
cross. Those savage torturers monstrously crucified it, piercing it with a nail
through that part where the bone was more solid.
And then, with a rope, they pulled violently on his left hand and fastened it to
the cross in the same manner. Finally, they extended his body on the cross beyond
all measure; and placing one of his shins on top of the other, they fastened to the
cross his feet, thus joined, with two nails. And they violently extended those
glorious limbs so far on the cross that nearly all of his veins and sinews were
bursting.
Then the crown of thorns, which they had removed from his head when he
was being crucified, they now put back, fitting it onto his most holy head. It
pricked his awesome head with such force that then and there his eyes were filled
with flowing blood and his ears were obstructed. And his face and beard were
covered as if they had been dipped in that rose-red blood. And at once those
crucifiers and soldiers quickly removed all the planks that abutted the cross, and
then the cross remained alone and lofty, and my Lord was crucified upon it.
And as I, filled with sorrow, gazed at their cruelty, I then saw his most
mournful Mother lying on the earth, as if trembling and halfdead. She was being
consoled by John and by those others, her sisters, who were then standing not far
from the cross on its right side. Then the new sorrow of the compassion of that
most holy Mother so transfixed me that I felt, as it were, that a sharp sword of
unbearable bitterness was piercing my heart. Then at last his sorrowful Mother
arose; and, as it were, in a state of physical exhaustion, she looked at her Son. Thus,
supported by her sisters, she stood there all dazed and in suspense, as though dead
yet living, transfixed by the sword of sorrow. When her Son saw her and his other
friends weeping, with a tearful voice he commended her to John. It was quite
discernible in his bearing and voice that out of compassion for his Mother, his own
heart was being penetrated by a most sharp arrow of sorrow beyond all measure.
Then too, his fine and lovely eyes appeared half dead; his mouth was open and
bloody; his face was pale and sunken, all livid and stained with blood; and his
whole body was as if black and blue and pale and very weak from the constant
downward flow of blood. Indeed, his skin and the virginal flesh of his most holy
body were so delicate and tender that, after the infliction of a slight blow, a black
and blue mark appeared on the surface. At times, however, he tried to make
stretching motions on the cross because of the exceeding bitterness of the intense
and most acute pain that he felt. For at times the pain from his pierced limbs and
veins ascended to his heart and battered him cruelly with an intense martyrdom;
and thus his death was prolonged and delayed amidst grave torment and great
bitterness.
Then, therefore, in distress from the exceeding anguish of his pain and already
near to death, he cried to the Father in a loud and tearful voice, saying: "O Father,
why have you forsaken me?" He then had pale lips, a bloody tongue, and a sunken
abdomen that adhered to his back as if he had no viscera within. A second time
also, he cried out again in the greatest of pain and anxiety: "O Father, into your
hands I commend my spirit." Then his head, raising itself a little, immediately
bowed; and thus he sent forth his spirit. When his Mother then saw these things,
she trembled at that immense bitterness and would have fallen onto the earth if she
had not been supported by the other women. Then, in that hour, his hands retracted
slightly from the place of the nail holes because of the exceeding weight of his
body; and thus his body was as if supported by the nails with which his feet had
been crucified. Moreover, his fingers and hands and arms were now more extended
than before; his shoulder blades, in fact, and his back were as if pressed tightly to
the cross.
Then at last the Jews standing around cried out in mockery against his Mother,
saying many things. For some said: "Mary, now your Son is dead"; but others said
other mocking words. And while the crowds were thus standing about, one man
came running with the greatest of fury and fixed a lance in his right side with such
violence and force that the lance would have passed almost through the other side
of the body. Thus, when the lance was extracted from the body, at once a stream, as
it were, of blood spurted out of that wound in abundance; in fact, the iron blade of
the lance and a part of the shaft came out of the body red and stained with the
blood. Seeing these things, his Mother so violently trembled with bitter sighing that
it was quite discernible in her face and bearing that her soul was then being
penetrated by the sharp sword of sorrow.
When all these things had been accomplished and when the large crowds were
receding, certain of the Lord's friends took him down. Then, with pity, his Mother
received him into her most holy arms; and sitting, she laid him on her knee, all torn
as he was and wounded and black and blue. With tears, she and John and those
others, the weeping women, washed him. And then, with her linen cloth, his most
mournful Mother wiped his whole body and its wounds. And she closed his eyes
and kissed them; and she wrapped him in a clean cloth of fine linen. And thus they
escorted him with lamentation and very great sorrow and placed him in the
sepulchre.