Hanc visionem vidit domina Birgitta in Iherusalem in ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri in capella montis Caluarie die Veneris post octauam Ascensionis Domini, vbi vidit rapta in spiritu totam passionem Domini seriose, que hic lacius continetur.
The Crucifixion of the Lord
Birgitta witnesses the preparation of the cross and the brutal nailing of Christ to it.
While I was at Mount Calvary, deeply sorrowful and weeping, I saw my Lord stripped and scourged, being led by the Jews to be crucified. They were guarding Him closely. At that time, I also saw a hole carved into the mountain, with the executioners standing around it, ready to carry out their cruelty. The Lord turned to me and said, "Pay attention: it was in this hole in the rock that the foot of my cross was fixed during my Passion." And I saw immediately how His cross was being fixed there by the Jews, and how it was being firmly secured in the hole in the rock of the mountain with wooden wedges, driven in all around with a hammer with the greatest force, so that the cross would stand more solidly and not fall. Once the cross was firmly set in place, they immediately attached wooden planks around the base of the post, forming steps that reached up to the place where his feet were to be nailed; this allowed both him and his executioners to climb up those steps and stand on the planks in a more convenient position to crucify him. After this, they climbed those steps, leading him along with mockery and great abuse. He climbed up willingly, led like a gentle lamb to the slaughter. Once He was on those boards, He didn't have to be forced; instead, He immediately and of His own free will stretched out His arm and, with His right hand open, placed it upon the cross, where those cruel torturers then savagely nailed Him, piercing His hand with a nail through the part where the bone was most solid. Then, pulling violently with a rope, they fastened his left hand to the cross just the same way. Then, with his body stretched out on the cross beyond its natural limit, one of his shins was placed over the other, and they nailed his feet together to the cross with two nails; they stretched those glorious limbs so violently on the cross that nearly all his veins and nerves were tearing apart. Once this was done, they took the crown of thorns they’d removed from his head during the crucifixion and placed it back on his most holy head, pressing it firmly into place. This pierced His reverend head so sharply that His eyes were immediately filled with flowing blood, His ears were likewise blocked, and His face and beard were as if covered and soaked in that rose-colored blood. At once, those executioners and soldiers quickly removed all the boards that had been attached to the cross, and then the cross remained alone and high, with my Lord crucified upon it.
The Compassion of the Mother
The vision focuses on the intense suffering of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross.
Filled with sorrow as I watched their cruelty, I then saw his mother, deeply grieving, lying on the ground, trembling and as if half-dead. John and the other women who were standing not far from the cross, to her right, were comforting her. A new sorrow of compassion for that most holy Mother pierced me so deeply that I felt as if a sharp, unbearable sword of bitterness were passing through my own heart. Then, finally rising, his sorrowful mother looked toward her Son as if drained of all physical strength; supported by the sisters, she stood there, completely suspended in shock, living yet like one dead, pierced through by the sword of sorrow. When the Son looked at her and the other friends who were weeping, he commended her to John in a mournful voice; it was clear from his gestures and his tone that his own heart was being pierced by the sharpest arrow of immense sorrow because of his mother's compassion.
The Agony and Death of Christ
Christ endures prolonged suffering on the cross before crying out to the Father and yielding his spirit.
Then his lovely, beautiful eyes looked half-dead; his mouth was open and bloodied; his face was pale, sunken, and completely bruised and stained with blood; his whole body also looked bruised, pale, and extremely weak from the constant flow of blood running down. The skin and virginal flesh of His most holy body were so delicate and tender that even a slight blow would leave a bruise on the surface. At times, he would try to stretch himself out on the cross because of the overwhelming bitterness he felt from that sharp, intense pain. For at times, the pain from his limbs and his pierced veins would rise to his heart and torment him cruelly with intense agony, and in this way his death was prolonged and drawn out with heavy suffering and immense bitterness. Then, anxious from the overwhelming agony of his pain and already near death, he cried out to the Father in a loud, mournful voice: "O Father, why have you forsaken me?" His lips were pale, his tongue was bloodied, and his stomach was so sunken it clung to his spine, as if he had no organs left inside him. A second time, he cried out again in intense, agonizing pain: "O Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Then, lifting his head slightly, he immediately bowed it and in this way gave up his spirit. Seeing this, his mother trembled with such intense bitterness that she would have fallen to the ground if the other women hadn't held her up. At that moment, his hands pulled back slightly from where the nails had pierced them because of the immense weight of his body, and so his body was, in effect, held up by the nails driven through his feet.
The Piercing and Burial
Following the mockery of the Jews and the piercing of Christ's side, his body is taken down and laid in the tomb.
His fingers, hands, and arms were stretched out further than before, while his shoulder blades and back were pulled tight against the cross. Then, finally, the Jews standing around mocked her, shouting many things against his mother. Some of them said, "Mary, your son is dead now," while others said other mocking things. As the crowd stood around, a man ran up in a rage and drove his spear into his right side with such violence and force that it looked as if it would pass right through his body. When the spear was pulled from his body, a river of blood immediately gushed from the wound with great force; the iron head of the spear and part of the shaft came out of his body, stained and dripping with blood. Seeing this, the Mother trembled so violently with a bitter groan that it was clear from her face and manner that her soul was being pierced at that moment by a sharp sword of sorrow. When this was finished and the many crowds were leaving, some of his friends took the Lord down. His mother then lovingly received him into her most holy arms and, sitting down, rested him on her lap, all torn, wounded, and bruised. She herself, along with John and the other women, washed him with their tears as they wept. Then his sorrowful mother wiped his entire body and his wounds with her linen cloth, closed his eyes while kissing them, and wrapped him in a clean shroud. And so, with wailing and great sorrow, they carried him and laid him in the tomb.
Read the original Latin
Ad montem Caluarie dum essem mestissima plorans, vidi Dominum meum nudum et flagellatum ductum per Iudeos ad crucifigendum. Qui diligenter ab eis custodiebatur.
Vidi quoque tunc foramen quoddam excisum in monte et crucifixores in circuitu paratos ad operandum crudelitatem.
Dominus autem conuersus ad me dixit michi: "Attende tu, quia in isto foramine petre infixus fuit pes crucis mee tempore passionis."
Et statim vidi, qualiter ibi crux eius a Iudeis figebatur et firmabatur fortiter in foramine petre montis cum lignis confixis cum malleo valentissime circumquaque, vt crux solidius staret, ne caderet.
Cum igitur crux ita solide firmata esset ibidem, statim adaptabantur tabule lignee in circuitu stipitis crucis per modum graduum vsque ad locum, vbi pedes eius crucifigi debebant, vt possent per illos gradus tabularum tam ipse quam crucifixores ascendere et super tabulas illas apciori modo stare ad crucifigendum eum.
Post hec autem ascenderunt ipsi per illos gradus, ducentes eum cum irrisione et vituperio maximo.
Qui gratanter ascendens velut agnus mansuetus ductus ad immolandum, cum esset iam super tabulas illas, non coactus sed statim voluntarie extendit brachium suum et aperta sua dextera manu posuit eam in cruce, quam illi seui tortores immaniter crucifixerunt, et perforabant eam clauo per illam partem, qua os solidius erat.
Tunc eciam trahentes cum fune vehementer manum eius sinistram cruci affixerunt eam simili modo.
Deinde extento corpore vltra modum in cruce posita fuit vna tibia eius super aliam et sic iunctos pedes affixerunt in cruce duobus clauis, et in tantum extenderunt illa gloriosa membra in cruce vehementer, quod quasi omnes vene et nerui eius rumpebantur.
Quo facto coronam de spinis, quam deposuerunt de capite eius, cum crucifigeretur, iterum imposuerunt et aptauerunt capiti suo sanctissimo.
Que tam fortiter pupugit reuerendum caput eius, quod oculi sui repleti fuerunt illico fluente sanguine, aures quoque obstruebantur et facies et barba quasi tegebantur et intincta erant illo roseo sanguine.
Et statim illi crucifixores et milites amouerunt velociter omnes tabulas illas, que adherebant cruci, et tunc remansit crux sola et alta et Dominus meus crucifixus in illa.
Cumque ego repleta dolore respicerem crudelitatem illorum, vidi tunc matrem eius mestissimam in terra iacentem et quasi trementem et semimortuam.
Quam consolabantur Iohannes et alie sorores eius, que tunc stabant non longe a cruce ad eius partem dexteram.
Dolor igitur nouus compassionis illius sanctissime matris in tantum transfixit me, quod quasi senciebam, quod cor meum pertransibat quidam gladius acutus importabilis amaritudinis.
Surgens tandem tunc illa eius mater dolorosa, quasi exinanita corpore, respexit ad filium suum, et sic sustentata stabat a sororibus, tota stupore suspensa et velut mortua viuens, gladio doloris transfixa.
Quam cum Filius respexisset et alios amicos plorantes, voce flebili commendabat eam Iohanni, et bene cernebatur in gestu eius et voce, quod cor ipsius ex compassione matris penetrabatur acutissima sagitta doloris immensi.
Tunc autem oculi eius amabiles et decori apparebant semimortui, os eius erat apertum et sanguinolentum, vultus pallidus et submersus totusque liuidus et intinctus sanguine, corpus quoque totum erat quasi liuidum et pallidum et languidum valde ex continuo fluxu decurrentis sanguinis.
Cutis eciam et caro illa virginea sanctissimi corporis eius ita delicata et tenera erat, quod ex modica percussione illata signum liuidum exterius apparebat.
Aliquando vero conabatur ipse extensiones facere in cruce pre amaritudine nimia, quam senciebat, intensi doloris acutissimi.
Nam quandoque dolor de membris eius et venis perforatis ascendebat ad cor et vexabat eum crudeliter intenso martirio, et sic mors eius prolongabatur et dilatabatur cum tormento graui et ingenti amaritutdine.
Tunc igitur ille anxius pre nimia doloris angustia et vicinus iam morti ad Patrem clamauit alta voce et flebili dicens: "O Pater, quare dereliquisti me?"
Habebatque tunc labia pallida et linguam sanguinolentam, ventrem submissum coherentem dorso, ac si nulla intus habuisset viscera.
Secundo quoque clamauit iterum cum anxio dolore maximo: "O Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum." Et tunc caput eius erigens se aliquantulum statim inclinauit se et sic emisit spiritum.
Que tunc mater eius videns contremuit pre immensa amaritudine, volens cadere in terram, nisi quod sustinebatur ab aliis mulieribus.
In illa igitur hora manus illius aliquantulum se retraxerunt a loco perforacionis clauorum pre nimio pondere corporis, et sic corpus eius quasi sustentabatur a clauis, quibus pedes crucifixi erant.
Digiti autem et manus et brachia magis iam extenta erant quam ante, spatule vero et dorsum eius quasi stringebantur ad crucem.
Tunc denique circumstantes Iudei irridentes clamabant contra matrem eius multa dicentes. Alii namque dicebant: "Maria, iam mortuus est filius tuus", alii vero dicebant alia verba irrisoria.
Et sic stantibus turbis in circuitu venit vnus accurrens cum furia maxima et infixit lanceam in eius latere dextro tam vehementer et valide, quod quasi per aliam partem corporis lancea voluit pertransire.
Quod cum extraheretur lancea de corpore, statim habundanter exibat de vulnere illo cum impetu quasi quidam fluuius sanguinis, ferrum vero lancee et aliqua pars haste rubicunda exibat de corpore et intincta sanguine.
Que videns mater ita vehementer contremuit cum amaro gemitu, quod bene cernebatur in eius facie et gestu, quod anima eius tunc penetrabatur acuto doloris gladio.
Hiis autem expletis cum turbe multe recederent, deposuerunt Dominum quidam amici eius. Quem tunc pie mater recepit inter sua brachia sanctissima et reclinauit eum sedens in genu totum dilaceratum, vulneratum et liuidum.
Quem lauabant cum lacrimis ipsa et Iohannes et alie mulieres plorantes. 34 Et tunc tersit eius mater mestissima cum lintheo suo totum corpus eius et vulnera clausitque eius oculos deosculando eos et inuoluit eum in sindone munda.
Et sic duxerunt eum cum planctu et dolore maximo et posuerunt eum in sepulchro.
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