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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