The Pain of the Cross

The placing of the cross in its socket had shaken Him with great violence, had strained all the ligaments, pained every nerve, and more or less dislocated all His bones. Burdened with His own weight, the august sufferer felt the strain increasing every moment of those six long hours. His sense of faintness and general weakness were overpowering; while to His own consciousness He became nothing but a mass of misery and swooning sickness...To us, sensations such as our Lord endured would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have come to our rescue; but in His case, He was wounded and felt the sword; He drained the cup and tasted every drop.