ye showed yourselves so faithful upon earth: and without doubt He for Whom ye prepared a burial place upon earth will reward your loving care by preparing for you a happy mansion in Heaven, a& on the night before His Death He promised Hi& disciples.
Oh that to me too, the least of all God's servants, might have been granted some share in the Burial of my Lord; that in the offices connected with it, some service, however small, might have been assigned to me! How willingly would I have held the ladder at the Cross's foot; or, as I stood below, have handed up the pincers for the drawing of the nails; or even lent a helping hand to those who were lowering the Sacred Corpse. What happiness would it have been if I could have stood beneath the Cross, so close to it as to have caught in my bosom one of the falling nails, which I might have kept as a Memorial of my Lord's Passion, that so, whenever I should look upon it, I might be moved to tears.
I praise and glorify Thee for that longing embrace with which Thy most sorrowful Mother received Thee into her arms, and folded Thee therein, when with compassionate devotion Thy faithful ones delivered Thee to her, and laid Thee in her Virgin lap. How copious were the tears that then streamed from those eyes, of all eyes the purest; how burning was the flood that then bedewed that face, of all faces the most modest, and fell from Thy Mother's cheeks upon Thy Corpse! How pure were the kisses with which Thy chaste Mother then covered Thy lifeless limbs; how often, and with what anguish, did she examine the prints of Thy Sacred Wounds! How loving were the arms with which she encircled and held the Blessed
