Mary during the Scourging of our Lord.
I saw the Blessed Virgin in a continual ecstasy during the time of
the scourging of her Divine Son; she saw and suffered with
inexpressible love and grief all the torments he was enduring. She
groaned feebly, and her eyes were red with weeping. A large veil
covered her person, and she leant upon Mary of Heli, her eldest sister,
who was old and extremely like their mother, Anne.10 Mary of Cleophas,
the daughter of Mary of Heli, was there also. The friends of Jesus and
Mary stood around the latter; they wore large veils, appeared overcome
with grief and anxiety, an were weeping as if in the momentary
expectation of death. The dress of Mary was blue; it was long, and
partly covered by a cloak made of white wool, and her veil was of
rather a yellow white. Magdalen was totally beside herself from grief,
and her hair was floating loosely under her veil.
When Jesus fell down at the foot of the pillar, after the
flagellation, I saw Claudia Procles, the wife of Pilate, sent some
large pieces of linen to the Mother of God. I know not whether she
thought that Jesus would be set free, and that his Mother would then
require linen to dress his wounds, or whether this compassionate lady
was aware of the use which would be made of her present. At the
termination of the scourging, Mary came to herself for a time, and saw
her Divine Son all torn and mangled, being led away by the archers
after the scouring: he wiped his eyes, which were filled with blood,
that he might look at his Mother, and she stretched out her hands
towards him, and continued to look at the bloody traces of his
footsteps. I soon after saw Mary and Magdalen approach the pillar where
Jesus had been scourged; the mob were at a distance, and they were
partly concealed by the other holy women, and by a few kind-hearted
persons who had joined them; they knelt down on the ground near the
pillar, and wiped up the sacred blood with the linen which Claudia
Procles had sent. John was not at that time with the holy women, who
were about twenty in number. The sons of Simeon and of Obed, and
Veronica, as also the two nephews of Joseph of Arimathea--Aram and
Themni--were in the Temple, and appeared to be overwhelmed with grief. It
was not more than nine o'clock a.m. when the scourging terminated.