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excerpts from Revelations of St. Bridget:

"therefore, my daughter, remember the Passion of my Son, 

FLY THE INSTABILITY OF THE WORLD, 

WHICH IS BUT A VISION, 

AND A FLOWER THAT SOON FADETH."

JESUS: "...their love towards Me is cold because they are never inflamed to seek Me unless compelled by tribulation. 

I am reputed as a worm, which lies in winter as of dead, on which the passer by spits and tramples. They treated Me like a worm, because I was deemed most abject and unworthy by them."    

MOTHER MARY: "He was to me as my heart. Hence, when He was born, I felt as though half my heart were born and went out of me. And when He suffered, I felt as though half my heart suffered, as when a body is half within and half without, when anything wounds what is without, that within feels it equally."   

ST. BRIDGET: "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.  

...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. 

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."    

   

MOTHER MARY: "At the death of my Son, I was like a woman having her heart pierced with five lances. For the first lance was the shameful and opprobrious nudity; because I saw my most beloved and powerful Son standing naked at the pillar, and having no clothing. The second was His accusation; for they accused Him, calling Him a traitor and a liar, and even an assassin, whom I knew to be just and truth-ful, offending and wishing to offend no one. The third lance to me was the crown of thorns, which so cruelly pierced His sacred head, that the blood flowed into His mouth, down His beard, and into His ears. The fourth was His piteous voice on the cross, when he cried to his Father. The fifth lance which pierced my heart was His most cruel death. My heart was pierced with as many lances as there were veins from which His precious blood gushed; for the veins of His hands and feet were pierced, and the pain of His lacerated nerves came inconsolably to His heart, and from His heart to the nerves again, and as His heart was most excellent and strong, as being formed of the best substance, therefore life and death contended, and thus life was bitterly prolonged in pain. But as death approached, when His heart was breaking with intolerable pain, then His limbs quivered, and His head, which had sunk on His shoulders, was slightly raised. His half closed eyes were opened midway. His mouth, too, opened, and His tongue was seen drenched in blood. His fingers and arms, which were somewhat contracted, expanded. Having given up the ghost, His head sunk on His breast, His hands sunk a little from the place of the wounds; His feet sustained the greater weight. Then my hands dried up, my eyes were darkened, and my face became corpse-like. My ears heard naught, naught could my mouth utter; my feet, too, shook, and my body fell to the earth. But rising from the ground, when I beheld my Son more fearful than a leper, I gave my will entirely to Him, knowing that all had been done according to His will, and that it could not have been done but by His permission, and I thanked Him for all. A certain joy was blended with my sorrow, for I beheld Him who never sinned, willingly, from His great charity, enduring such things for sinners." 

Afterwards, Mary Magdalen and the other holy women came, and many holy angels, like specks in the sunbeam were present, paying reverence to their Creator. What grief I then felt, no one can tell. For I was like a woman in childbirth, all whose limbs after delivery are tremulous, who, though she can scarcely breathe for pain, yet rejoices inwardly as much as she can, because she knows that her child is born never to return to the misery from which he came. So, though I was incomparably sad for the death of my Son, yet as my Son was to die no more, but live forever, I rejoiced in soul, and so a certain gladness was mingled with my grief. I can truly say that when my Son was buried, there were in a manner two hearts in one tomb. Is it not said: “Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart?” So my thoughts and my heart were ever in the sepulchre of my Son.  

Consider the Passion of my Son...so my heart was scourged and pierced when my Son was. I was nigher to Him in his Passion, and did not leave Him...And when He looked upon me from the cross, and I on Him, then tears streamed from my eyes as from veins. And when He beheld me spent with grief, He was so afflicted by my pain, that all the pain of His own wounds, was, as it were, dulled at the sight of the grief in which He beheld me. Hence, I say boldly, that His pains were mine, because His heart was mine. For as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so my Son and I redeemed the world, as it were, with one heart. Think, then, how I was at the death of my Son, and you will not find it hard to leave the world."

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