Life-Giving Spring

Zeytinburnu, Turkey (460)

 

A tradition around 1320 holds that this sacred spring  outside Constantinople was dedicated to the Mother of  God in the early Christian period.

Nestled among plane and cypress trees near the city's Golden Gate, it was overgrown, slimy, and  forgotten by April 4, 450, when a soldier named Leo Marcullus stopped there to help a lost and thirsty blind man. Leo heard a voice say to take the water and give it to the thirsty man and take the slime and put it on  the man's eyes. The voice also asked that he build a temple there.

Leo found the  spring, restored sight to the blind man with its mud, and  after becoming Emperor in 457, built a church at the spot. Incommemoration of its dedication in 460,the  Mother of God as Life-Giving Spring is celebrated  on the Friday after Easter.

 

Text and image used with permission.
Source: "365 Days with Mary" by Michael O'Neill

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