Today at Southwark Cathedral is one of our ‘baptism Sundays’. We have about five a year, when perhaps three or four children are brought by parents and godparents and the rest of their family and friends to the Cathedral for the Choral Eucharist during which baptisms take place. You’d imagine that, taking a lead from the Acts of the Apostles which we always read during the Easter season, there would be universal rejoicing that ‘the Lord is adding to our number’. But as with many churches the fact that the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, the two dominical sacraments amongst the seven, are celebrated together, is not met with unalloyed joy. Some people are displaced from their ‘normal’ seat; there are a lot of people who ‘don’t know what they are doing’ and of course the babies tend to cry during the quieter parts of the service. It’s all very disruptive!
A well behaved baby!
Of course, when I was a curate, those unreformed days, we did baptisms on a Sunday afternoon, the church packed with people and the congregation conveniently at home enjoying their Sunday lunch whilst new members of the Body of Christ were being welcomed by the harassed curate.
Last week I went to Ireland to meet members of the Society of Catholic Priests working there, both north and south of the border. It was great to meet other members of the Society working in a very different church environment and facing different issues to those of us in the Church of England including how they will work as one church in a post-Brexit environment when the border between north and south may be very real. After the meeting had finished my host drove me out to see one of the more ancient churches in the area. St Doulagh’s Church – Clochar Dúiligh – stands just outside the town of Malahide. This was part of the Norwegian Kingdom in Ireland and there was thought at one time that St Doulagh never existed but was a manifestation of Olave. But now it’s thought that the saint did exist, a hermit, maybe living in a cell on this site. The small medieval church dates from the 12th century and is the only church with a solid stone roof still to be in use in Ireland. It is beautiful. Alongside the ancient church is a Victorian nave and sanctuary constructed by the father of ‘Woodbine Willie’, Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, whose Great-Granddaughter was visiting the church at the same time as I was (what a small world it is).
The baptistery at St Doulagh’s
However, what was most fascinating was that in the grounds around the church is a separate baptistery. It’s the only one in Ireland. The sunken octagonal structure covers a water channel into which those to be baptised were taken. A pool by the side may have been for baptism by total immersion. As a result of various bits of work to the land and the nearby road the water source has been diverted and the baptistery is now dry. But it is a deeply wonderful, evocative place. The main baptistery is dedicated to St Doulagh, the small pool to St Catherine. It is said that St Patrick operated in this area, that a small community lived here. It is certainly a place of deep and resonant history.
In between the ‘font’ and the pool a hawthorn grows. My guide suggested that it was the descendent of a pagan hawthorn on the spot that the Christians ‘baptised’, adopted in the way that the early missionaries did, to take the local pagan population with them. Whatever the truth it was amazing to see. It took me to other places were baptisteries are separate and not least to northern Syria, to the complex of church and monastic buildings from the 5th century dedicated to St Simon Stylites that is a few miles northwest of Aleppo. There too is an octagonal baptistery at the end of what would have been a triumphal processional route that the newly baptised would take into the church. The baptistery and route to the church outside of Malahide are more modest but the principal is the same.
The baptistery of St Simon near Aleppo
It reminded me of one of the texts in the Common Worship Baptismal Rite. After the baptism, as part of the prayers, the priest can use these words
In baptism God invites you on a life-long journey.
Together with all God’s people
you must explore the way of Jesus.
The early builders in Ireland and Syria knew this to be true. The deep and flowing waters through which the child, the adult, was brought was a kind of Red Sea experience. Then the journey began, from the baptistery into the church, from that Sacrament into the Christian life, ‘exploring the way of Jesus’. Perhaps we should build some more external baptisteries!
This prayer is also from Common Worship.
Eternal God, our beginning and our end,
preserve in your people the new life of baptism;
as Christ receives us on earth,
so may he guide us through the trials of this world,
and enfold us in the joy of heaven,
where you live and reign,
one God for ever and ever.
Amen.
LIVING GOD 
You must be logged in to post a comment.