31. Of her reverential burial

At length on the Friday within the octave of Easter, which was the fourth ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM day after her happy passing from this vale of tears and from the enclosure of the earthly dwelling-, after the sacrifice of the Mass had been most devoutly celebrated she was given to burial, at the twelfth hour at midday, the sun shining brightly, and the day declining to its close, after the example of Christ, Who suffered on a Friday, died at the ninth hour, and was buried before sunset. To celebrate whose funeral rites was present the religious father Judocus, Prior of the Regulars of Briel, who had very often familiarly conversed with her in life, and had wisely tested many of the secrets of her sanctity. He persuaded for the better, and urged the people to suffer the servant of God to be buried in a Christian fashion. And when he had spoken the popular devotion agreed with the Prior, and at once her coffin, having been strongly fastened, the body of the holy virgin was given to burial after the example of Christ buried in the bosom of the earth, to be again raised by Him on the last day and glorified with all the saints in everlasting blessedness. And she was buried the beloved spouse of Christ, ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM Lydia, white in virginity, deep in humi lity, perfected in patience, burning in charity, merciful, kind, excelling in devotion, sublime in contemplation, richly adorned with all the virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost : not wrapt in silks, not enclosed in a marble tomb, but in a grave of stones befittingly formed with cement work; not in a royal city, but in her native town called Schiedam ; not in a choir of clerics nor in a sanctuary of priests, but in the common cemetery of the parochial church of St. John Baptist, to the east of the temple, where the grave of the virgin may be seen and visited by all the inhabitants : not, however, deep in the earth nor covered above with earth, nor lifted high above the earth, but on beams of wood laid across within a stone grave. And this indeed very fittingly, that as for thirty years she had not touched the earth in life, so the earth should not touch her in death nor a mound of earth cover the casket of her body. Over whom is placed a large stone of red colour, beseemingly adorned within with divers red crosses, raised about two cubits above the mound of the grave.