Being indecisive leads to two religious figures showering you in their bodily fluids, at least in the case of Saint Augustine. 

Saint Augustine was arguably one of the most studious of saints. Some saints are famous for heroic feats, like Saint George slaying a dragon, but Saint Augustine is remembered for the roughly five million written words he left behind on theology. In short, he was really smart and articulate. But in this particular instance, he had a dilemma: do I focus my worship on the Virgin Mary or on Christ?

Before he could resort to the classic “eenie, meenie, miney, moe'' method, they both rewarded him. Mary offers a stream of her breast milk, and Christ offers blood from his wound. A rather stellar outcome, considering indecisiveness usually leads to nothing. Surely Saint Augustine felt honored to be showered in their affection, however odd it reads out of context. A quick symbolist translation: the milk is healing magic and the blood liquid forgiveness.

In another painting by our artist, Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Saint Bernand gets offered the Virgin Mary’s breast milk, which not only heals him, but gives his lips “celestial eloquence." When put like that, being offered bodily fluids is suddenly a lot more enticing. We don’t know if Saint Augustine got the same bonus effect, though. 

Murillo must have been a fan of Saint Augustine as he depicted him several times in his work. For example, Saint Augustine in Ecstasy. He also painted the Virgin Mary a lot, usually lactating. During Murillo’s lifetime, artworks depicting the Virgin Mary with nudity were beginning to be criticized in Spain. Hardly surprising that people would begin to find painted nudity of the Virgin Mary offensive. Despite gratuitous nudity and breastfeeding being entirely different things, depictions of Mary nursing started declining.

Murillo had a particular fondness for the Virgen de la leche scene, as it was called, so instead of moving away from it entirely to appease his audience, he adjusted his approach. Instead of covering her breasts he put lots of distance between her breasts and whomever else was in the work. For instance, work of her breastfeeding baby Jesus didn’t have the baby’s mouth on her nipple. Also, in both the aforementioned The Vision of St. Bernard and in this painting, she’s at least a few feet away, the idea being to make her seem untouchable so that everyone would let the nudity slide.