The river represents illuminating grace, the sparks angels, the
flowers saints. This river of light wherein are reflected the Elect, as
verdure and flowers on a hillside are mirrored in a limpid stream at
its foot, is poetically represented as having the effect of a
sacrament. It bestows grace and that grace called _lumen gloriae_, light
of glory, endowing the soul with a faculty beyond its natural needs or
merits, so disposes the soul that it becomes deiform and is rendered
capable of immediate intuition of the Divine Essence.
"There is a light above, which visible
Makes the Creator unto every creature
Who only in beholding Him, has peace."
(XXX, 100.)
Beatrice tells Dante that he must drink his fill of the stupendous
splendor by gazing intently on the river of pure light, so that he may
be able to contemplate the whole unveiled glory and then see God
directly.
As Dante gazes on the illuminating stream it undergoes a marvelous
transformation, taking the form of a Rose the center of which is a sea
of radiance.
"And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids
Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me
Out of its length to be transformed to round.
Then as a folk who have been under masks
Seem other than before, if they divest
The semblance not their own they disappeared in,
Thus into greater pomp were changed for me
The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw
Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest.
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