of them knelt upon his sacred chest, a second held his hand flat, and a
third taking a long thick nail, pressed it on the open palm of that
adorable hand, which had ever been open to bestow blessings and favours
on the ungrateful Jews, and with a great iron hammer drove it through
the flesh, and far into the wood of the cross. Our Lord uttered one
deep but suppressed groan, and his blood gushed forth and sprinkled the
arms of the archers. I counted the blows of the hammer, but my extreme
grief made me forget their number. The nails were very large, the heads
about the size of a crown piece, and the thickness that of a man's thumb,
while the points came through at the back of the cross. The Blessed
Virgin stood motionless; from time to time you might distinguish her
plaintive moans; she appeared as if almost fainting from grief, and
Magdalen was quite beside herself. When the executioners had nailed the
right hand of our Lord, they perceived that his left hand did not reach
the hole they had bored to receive the nail, therefore they tied ropes
to his left arm, and having steadied their feet against the cross,
pulled the left hand violently until it reached the place prepared for
it. This dreadful process caused our Lord indescribable agony, his
breast heaved, and his legs were quite contracted. They again knelt
upon him, tied down his arms, and drove the second nail into his left
hand; his blood flowed afresh, and his feeble groans were once more
heard between the blows of the hammer, but nothing could move the
hard-hearted executioners to the slightest pity. The arms of Jesus,
thus unnaturally stretched out, no longer covered the arms of the
cross, which were sloped; there was a wide space between them and his
armpits. Each additional torture and insult inflicted on our Lord
caused a fresh pang in the heart of his Blessed Mother; she became
white as a corpse, but as the Pharisees endeavoured to increase her
pain by insulting words and gestures, the disciples led her to a group
of pious women who were standing a little farther off.