One of the malls we visited while in Manila years ago had a patio with a ring of little fountains around a big one, which at intervals hurled a tall column of water into the air. I took a shot of my daughter at the moment when the water spurted out. The effort made the camera shake, but despite this the picture has come out well. It shows a white pillar of water that seems to come out of the girl’s head.
Behind her and the people and the circle of little fountains and the ascending stream at the center, an enormous Christmas tree stands between two palms.
In a poem about the Annunciation, I once wrote, I imagined the angel Gabriel to have surprised Mary beside a well, about to fill her jug with water. (Jan Vermeer would have loved the scene, although he would probably put it indoors.) The angel must have caught Mary, being a woman of work, doing her chores, although I admit that equally he could have found her praying, too, for Mary was one who kept things in her heart, and so was a woman of prayer.
In his Sermon for Christmas Day, St. Bernard of Clairvaux compares Christ to a fountain of many purposes – as the fountain of mercy, whose waters of pardon will wash away our sins; as the fountain of wisdom, whose waters of prudence will quench our thirst; as the fountain of grace, whose waters of devotion will irrigate the plants of our good works; and as the fountain of charity, which will give us “heated waters of ardent zeal with which to cook our food” because these waters “serve both to spiritualize and to warm our affections.”
Mary was the first to make use of these waters. In fact, being the mother of Jesus, she is in a sense the source of these fountains. No doubt she participates – through her intercession – in bringing these waters to God’s children.
There is yet a fifth fountain that Christ has promised – the fountain of life.
To St. Bernard, the four fountains correspond to the four wounds that Christ received while still alive and hanging on the cross – the wounds made by the nails on his hands and feet. He received a fifth wound, after the soldiers found him dead, when with a spear they opened his side, from which flowed blood and water, and these, as is every so often depicted, Mary collected in a chalice.
Because of the fifth wound, we have the fifth fountain – the fountain of life. Mary is the keeper and channel of this life-giving fountain.
In another sermon, St. Bernard compares Mary to an aqueduct. In the sense that she gave birth to Jesus, we consider her a channel between the Father and the Son, and in the sense that she directs grace to flow to us from Jesus, we find her an aqueduct between Christ and us. St. Bernard says, “This stream from the heavenly source descends to us through an aqueduct; it does not indeed exhibit all the fullness of the Fountain but it serves to moisten our dry and withered hearts with some few drops of the waters of grace.”
My own favorite image has Christ as the sun and Mary the moon. At night, the moon shines with the sun’s light. The moon channels the light of the sun towards the earth, illuminating it.
Mary’s yes to Gabriel set in motion the aqueduct system called for in God’s plan for us – the water of grace began spurting from the fountains of Christ and streaming into the world through the channels that Mary supplies.
What I thought I saw at the mall before we left brought home to me Mary’s role in the plan of salvation. A mother held her little child’s hand towards the fountain so it could catch some of the water.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
