Five-thousand four-hundred eighty.

Thanks to the prayers of St. Bridget of Sweden and her close relationship with Jesus Christ, we have this number to contemplate: the 5,480 blows struck at the body of Christ during His Passion. Strikes meted out with whips, fists, iron nails, rods, and tools of torture such as the cat-o'-nine-tails.

This almost unbearable statistic should rouse the Christian faithful to contemplate the staggering suffering Christ endured to redeem a sinful humanity.

From her childhood in the early 14th century, St. Bridget had special devotion to Christ’s wounds. She had an early vision of Christ on the cross of Calvary, shedding blood for the remission of sins. From that time on, Christ’s Passion took on a central role in Bridget’s life.

'I beheld His body, bruised and beaten to the very ribs.'

Bridget often prayed to Christ to reveal how many times He was struck during His Passion and crucifixion. One day during the year 1350, He appeared to her before a crucifix inside the Church of St. Paul in Rome.

“I received 5,480 blows on My Body,” he told her. “If you wish to honor them in some way, say 15 Our Fathers and 15 Hail Marys with the following prayers for a whole year. When the year is up, you will have honored each one of My Wounds.”

The Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Christ, shows evidence of the brutality visited on the Lord’s body.Dianelos Georgoudis/Wikimedia Commons

The mystical dialogue between Christ and St. Bridget adds great depth and detail to the story of Christ’s Passion and death. Bridget received revelations from Christ and the Virgin Mary that were collected into eight volumes and a supplemental volume. They include more graphic details than are typically found in popular art depictions of Christ’s Passion.

St. Bridget was born in 1303. Eight children were born from her 28-year marriage to Ulf Gudmarsson, the governor of an important Swedish district. After the death of her husband, St. Bridget settled near the Cistercian Monastery of Alvastra. She founded a religious order known as the Bridgettines. Pope John Paul II named her co-patroness of Europe in 1999.

“Here began the divine revelations that were to accompany her for the rest of her life,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 2010. “Bridget always had a special devotion to Christ's Passion, contemplating in it God's infinite love for human beings. She boldly places these words on the lips of the Lord who speaks to her: 'O my friends, I love my sheep so tenderly that were it possible I would die many other times for each one of them that same death I suffered for the redemption of all.'"

Bridget wrote in stirring and sorrowful tones on the sufferings of Christ.

'Were it possible I would die many other times for each one of them.'

“Thou wast inhumanly scourged and wounded with grievous wounds, that Thy most innocent skin and flesh were intolerably torn,” she wrote. “And thus afflicted and tortured, Thou didst hang on the cross, O my most sweet Jesus, and in excessive pain didst patiently and humbly await the hour of death.”

John Paul II said St. Bridget’s revelations are worthy of belief. “The Church, which recognized Bridget's holiness without ever pronouncing on her individual revelations, has accepted the overall authenticity of her interior experience,” the pontiff wrote in his motu proprio "Spes Aedificandi."

St. Bridget also revealed messages from the Virgin Mary on her sufferings watching her dearly beloved Son tortured at the pillar.

“He stripped Himself, and Himself stretched His hands to the pillar, which His enemies, pitiless, bound,” Mary said, according to one revelation. “Now, while tied there He had no clothing, but stood as He was born, and suffered the shame of His nakedness.

Flagellation of Christ by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1617.Wikimedia

“At the first blow, I, who stood nearest, fell as if dead, and on recovering my senses I beheld His body bruised and beaten to the very ribs, so that His ribs could be seen; and what was still more bitter, when the scourge was raised, His very flesh was furrowed by the thongs.”

The crown of thorns caused massive bleeding that made it difficult for Christ to see.

“This done, they fitted a crown of thorns to His head, which so acutely wounded the venerable head of my Son that His eyes were filled, His ears stopped up, with the blood that streamed down, and His whole beard matted with the gore,” Mary said.

“His skin was so tender and fair that it could not be slightly struck without blood issuing at once. His blood was so fresh that it could be seen in His clear skin.”

Mary described receiving the body of her son from the cross: “Then He was taken down from the cross, and I received Him into my bosom, like a leper, and all livid, for His eyes were dead and full of blood, His mouth cold as snow, His beard like cords, His face contracted. His hands were so stiffened that they could not be raised above the navel.”

Mary said she had wanted to cross Christ’s arms on his chest, but the rigor made this impossible. This is borne out in the Shroud of Turin, Christ’s likely burial cloth, which shows his hands crossed on his stomach.

St. Bridget died in 1373 and was solemnly canonized a saint by Pope Boniface IX in 1391. She had left Sweden in 1349 and went to Rome. In 1371, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

The detail contained in St. Bridget’s revelations is similar to visions related by Venerable Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), who received extensive insights on the life of Christ and His blessed mother.

In one vision, Sister Emmerich described the half-intoxicated torturers at the scourging at the pillar.

“Jesus’ body was livid, brown, blue, and red, and entirely covered with swollen cuts. His sacred blood was running down on the ground,” she said. “He trembled and shuddered. Derision and mockery assailed Him on all sides."

The Deposition from the Cross. Fra Angelico/Public Domain

“Under their furious blows, the swollen welts on Jesus’ sacred body were torn and rent; His blood spurted around so that the arms of His tormentors were sprinkled with it,” Sister Emmerich said. “Jesus moaned and prayed and shuddered in His agony.”

She described some of the instruments of torture that were shown in painful detail in the 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ."

“The last two scourgers struck Jesus with whips consisting of small chains, or straps, fastened to an iron handle, the ends furnished with iron points, or hooks,” she said. “They tore off whole pieces of skin and flesh from His ribs. Oh, who can describe the awful barbarity of that spectacle!”

The Virgin Mary described to St. Bridget the wounds to her own heart watching her Son treated with such barbarity. “At the death of my Son, I was like a woman having her heart pierced with five lances,” Mary said.

The first lance was the “shameful and opprobrious nudity” at the scourging pillar. The second, accusations that Christ was traitor and liar. The third lance, she said, was the crown of thorns that “so cruelly pierced” His sacred head. The fourth, “His piteous voice on the cross when He cried to His Father, saying, ‘O Father why has Thou forsaken Me?’” The fifth lance, Mary said, “was His most cruel death.”

15 Prayers to Honor Christ’s Wounds

Christ gave St. Bridget a 15-prayer devotion for anyone wishing to honor the sacred wounds of His Passion. The devotion does not include the traditional Five Holy Wounds of Christ (nail holes in left and right hands, nail holes in right and left feet, and piercing of His side), which are the subject of other devotions.

Over the course of a year, this devotion honors each of the 5,475 wounds of Christ.

Prayer I

O Jesus Christ, eternal sweetness of them that hope in Thee, joy exceeding all joy and all desire, salvation, and love of sinners, who hast declared it to be Thy delight to be with the children of men, [Thou who wast] made man for man in the end of time; remember all Thy premeditation and interior grief which Thou didst endure in Thy human body at the approach of the time of Thy most saving Passion, preordained in Thy divine heart.

Remember the sadness and the bitterness which, as Thou Thyself didst testify, Thou didst feel in Thy soul when at the Last Supper with Thy disciples Thou didst give them Thy Body and Blood, didst wash their feet, and sweetly consoling them, foretell Thy imminent Passion. Remember all the fear, anguish, and grief which Thou didst endure in Thy delicate body before the Passion of the cross when, after Thy thrice-repeated prayer and bloody sweat, Thou wast betrayed by Thy disciple Judas, taken by a chosen people, accused by false witnesses, unjustly judged by three judges, condemned innocent in the chosen city, at Paschal time, in the bloom of youth, stripped of Thy own clothing and clothed in the garments of another, buffeted, Thy face and eyes veiled, smitten with blows, bound to the pillar, scourged, crowned with thorns, struck with a reed on the head, and torn with numberless other acts of violence.

Give me, O Lord God, I beseech Thee, before I die, in memory of these Thy passions before the cross, a true contrition, true confession, worthy satisfaction and remission of all my sins. Amen.