Christmas Eve and The Virgin Mary

Like anyone who has had children, I think of the Virgin Mary on the eve of her giving birth and wonder what trepidation and apprehension she felt about giving birth to a first child, the pain, then the relief and calmness afterwards - that moment when a child is born and Time calls time to its headlong trajectory; calls a Chrstmas truce when past and future rejoin across men's trenched divides, and in the hush and stillness, holds its breath in sheer awe of what has just happened. And I remember the little saying, God reminds Earth of Heaven when a child is born. May every child born this eve and every day remind us of Heaven in case we forget. In this panel by Lluis Borrassa, a Catalan artist who lived about 1360-1425, the Virgin Mary (haloed) with her classmates is showing needlework samplers to their teacher. The Virgin Mary's needlework shows a fountain (symbolic of the Immaculate Conception) surrounded by five flying angels. This fountain is remarkable similar to those fountains favoured by Stuart embroiderers.