After some delay, when night drew on, Joseph asks the Blessed Virgin to allow the Sacred Body to be wrapped in linen clothes and buried. Perhaps she withstood this request, saying, “Oh, my friends, do not wish to take the Body of my Son so quickly out of my sight, or let me be buried with Him.” But she wept inconsolably ; beholding the Wounds in His Hands and Side, seeing, too, the marks of the thorns, His dead Face, His torn beard, His Face besmeared with spittle and with blood as she looked at His features, now this way, now that ; nor could she cease to gaze, nor cease to weep. As to the plucking of the beard, Scripture itself bears testimony to the truth of it, for Isaiah says, “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.”1 His mother saw all this, and wished to have time to dwell on all. But, it was getting late, and so John said, “Lady, let us accede to the request of Joseph and Nicodemus, and permit them to prepare the Body of our Lord for burial ; by too long delay It may receive some fresh insult from the Jews.” At this saying, we can imagine, the Virgin, full of gratitude and prudence, remembering that she had been committed to the care of John by her Son, withdrawing her refusal ; and, with words of blessing, permitting His sacred Body to be wrapped in the linen, as it was the custom of the Jews so to bury. Then His mother held His Head and composed It for burial, as Magdalen did His Feet. For Magdalen’ may have asked that this part of the preparation for burial might be given to her, saying, “Grant me, I pray you, that I may arrange the Feet, for at these it was that I found mercy.” Her request was vouchsafed her, and she reverently held His Feet. Her sorrow at that moment seemed to cause her strength to fail her, and those Feet, once by her bedewed with tears of compunction, were now again bathed with a flood of tears of sorrow and compassion. As she gazed upon those Feet, wounded, bruised, shrivelled, blood-stained, she wept most bitterly. For, as the truth itself testifies, “she loved much ;2 w therefore she wept much, and especially at those mournful obsequies of her Lord and Master, afflicted, scourged, wounded, dead, and reduced, as it were, to nothing. She could scarcely contain herself for sorrow ; her heart was breaking. She knew of no remedy, and this office she was helping to perform was one unfamiliar to her. It was a new and a last duty she had now to perform, and in performing it her soul was bitterly afflicted, because she could not do it so precisely nor recollectedly as she desired. She would have washed, and anointed, and carefully arranged His sacred Form, but neither time nor place permitted her to carry out these desires. She could not do more; she could not do differently : she did what she could. At least, she was able to wash His Feet, to embrace and kiss them, to wrap them up, and arrange them carefully, according to the best of her knowledge and ability. All having been done, they turn to the Virgin Mother, as if to see what more should be done, and give vent to their sorrow. Then, seeing there could be no more delay, the mother haply kissed her dearest Son’s face, and said, “O my Son, I hold Thee dead, to my breast ; bitter indeed, bitter is this parting ; pleasant and lovely was life in fellowship with Thee, without offence or harm to others ; and yet, O sweetest Son, Thou hast been slain as if an evil-doer. Faithfully, O my Son, have I served Thee, and Thou me ; but in Thy bitter struggle, it was not Thy Father’s Will to help Thee, and I had no power. Thou hast given up Thyself for love of the human race, whom Thou wouldst redeem. Hard, indeed, and painful was that work of Redemption, in which I rejoice, for it accomplished man’s salvation. However, in Thy Sorrows and Death I am sharply afflicted ; for I know that Thou never sinnedst ; and that without a cause, as far as Thyself is concerned, Thou didst endure a most painful and shameful death. Now, then, my Son, our companionship is broken ; and from Thee I must be separated. I, Thy most mournful mother, will bury Thee, but afterwards whither shall I go ? Where shall I stay, my Son ? How can I live without Thee ? Would I not willingly be buried with Thee, that wherever you are I might be ? But though not in body, yet in mind, let me be buried with Thee ; let my soul be buried in the tomb with Thy Body : to Thee I commit it, to Thee resign it. O my Son, how bitter is this separation I” We can picture her tears falling upon His Face, even more copiously than those of Magdalen upon His Feet. Then she washed His Face, and wrapped His Head in the napkin, and carefully fastened it. Then, again, a second time were words of blessing uttered. And all knelt down in adoration ; and kissing His Feet, lifted his Body and bore It to the sepulchre — the mother at His Head, Magdalen at His Feet, the rest bearing the Body between them. The sepulchre was near the place of crucifixion, but a short distance off, where they reverently laid Him, with bended knees, with great lamentation, loud sobbings, and bitter cries. His mother, with words full of blessing, again embraced Him, and stooped over Him, and fain would have remained by the Body of her dear Son. But they removed her, and placed a great stone at the door of the sepulchre. Bede says, the tomb was round and excavated, formed out of the rock, of some height, so that a man could just reach the top with his hand, and that it had an entrance from the east : but that the side where the Lord’s Body was placed was towards the north, cut out of the same rock, and seven feet in length.
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