“God is like a fountain from which people draw as much water as the jug they carry will hold.” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel)

The gift of the Holy Spirit ,which was given to the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection, turned each one of them into a jug, containing God’s own Holy Spirit. It happened on the occasion of Pentecost, when the disciples were all together and flames of fire rested on their heads. (Acts 2:3-4)The disciples had been made into jugs carved out by Jesus himself to hold the fullness of God’s Spirit and to pour it out to the whole world, a pouring that would grow and continue long after the disciples themselves had rejoined Jesus in Heaven. The fountain has never gone dry, though there have been times when human beings have wondered if it had.

St. Paul wrote these words to the people in Corinth who had first heard of Jesus and the great fountain of the Spirit of God from himself: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” The people of Corinth were not mainly Hebrews, and not rooted in anticipation of the coming of a Messiah. Paul stayed with them a year and a half to lead them to the fountain of life in Christ. He told them of the resurrection and wrote, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1Corinthians 1:18)

All of the disciples but one brought the fountain of God’s Spirit to the places where they preached and ministered. Peter wrote, “He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”(2 Peter1:4)

The apostle John also wrote of Jesus sharing the fountain of the divine nature: “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Who ever believes in me . . . rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:38)

The disciples were walking jugs of water in their lives, and Jesus remains the fountain of living water, along with His Father God and the Holy Spirit. St. John of the cross experienced that fountain and lived to lead many others to find it as well.

Love in Him,

Prue