. When they approached our
Lord's Cross, his friends retired a few paces back, and the Blessed
Virgin was seized with fear lest they should indulge their hatred of
Jesus by insulting even his dead body. Her fears were not quite
unfounded, for when they first placed their ladders against the Cross
they declared that he was only pretending to be dead; in a few moments,
however, seeing that he was cold and stiff, they left him, and removed
their ladders to the crosses on which the two thieves were still
hanging alive. They took up their iron staves and broke the arms of the
thieves above and below the elbow; while another archer at the same
moment broke their legs, both above and below the knee. Gesmas uttered
frightful cries, therefore the executioner finished him off by three
heavy blows of a cudgel on his chest. Dismas gave a deep groan, and
expired: he was the first among mortals who had the happiness of
rejoining his Redeemer. The cords were then loosened, the two bodies
fell to the ground, and the executioners dragged them to a deep morass,
which was between Calvary and the walls of the town, and buried them
there.

The archers still appeared doubtful whether Jesus was really dead,
and the brutality they had shown in breaking the legs of the thieves
made the holy women tremble as to what outrage they might next
perpetrate on the body of our Lord. But Cassius, the subaltern officer,
a young man of about five-and-twenty, whose weak squinting eyes and
nervous manner had often excited the derision of his companions, was
suddenly illuminated by grace, and being quite overcome at the sight of
the cruel conduct of the soldiers, and the deep sorrow of the holy
women, determined to relieve their anxiety by proving beyond dispute
that Jesus was really dead. The kindness of his heart prompted him, but
unconsciously to himself he fulfilled a prophecy. He seized his lance
and rode quickly up to the mound on which the Cross was planted,
stopped just between the cross of the good thief and that of our Lord,
and taking his lance in both hands, thrust it so completely into the
right side of Jesus that the point went through the heart, and appeared
on the left side. When Cassius drew his lance out of the wound a
quantity of blood and water rushed from it, and flowed over his face
and body. This species of washing produced effects somewhat similar to
the vivifying waters of Baptism: grace and salvation at once entered
his soul. He lea