That the joy of the following Paschal Sabbath should not be disturbed, the Jews wished the body of Jesus to be taken down from the cross; but because they could not take down a criminal until he was dead, they came with iron mallets to break his legs, as they had already done to the two thieves crucified with him. And Mary, while she remains weeping at the death of her Son, sees those armed men coming towards her Jesus. At this sight she first trembled with fear, then she said: Ah, my Son is already dead, cease to maltreat him, and cease to torture me a poor mother longer. She implored them not to break his legs: “Oravit eos, ne frangerent crura,” as St. Bonaventure writes. But while she is thus speaking, oh, God! she sees a soldier with violence brandishing a spear, and piercing the side of Jesus: “One of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water.”[1515] The cross shook at the stroke of the spear, and, as was revealed to St. Bridget, the heart of Jesus was divided: “Ita ut ambæ partes essent divisæ.”[1516] There came out blood and water, for only a few drops of blood remained, and those also the Saviour wished to shed, in order to show that he had no more blood to give us. The injury of that stroke was offered to Jesus, but the pain was inflicted on Mary: Christ, says the devout Lanspergius, shared with his mother the infliction of that wound, for he received the insult and his mother the pain.[1517] The holy Fathers explain this to be the very sword predicted to the Virgin by St. Simeon; a sword, not of iron, but of grief, which pierced through her blessed soul in the heart of Jesus, where it always dwelt. Thus, among others, St. Bernard says: The spear which opened his side passed through the soul of the Virgin, which could not be torn from the heart of Jesus.[1518] And the divine mother herself revealed the same to St. Bridget, saying: “When the spear was drawn out, the point appeared red with blood; then I felt as if my heart were pierced when I saw the heart of my most dear Son pierced.”[1519] The angel told St. Bridget, that such were the sufferings of Mary, that she was saved from death only by the miraculous power of God.[1520] In her other dolors she at least had her Son to compassionate her; and now she had not even him to take pity on her.