a Grateful Response
FALL 2009
at Easter, consequently, was truncated to the introductory rites for the baptism liturgy & the life of the church of infants. Thereafter, even adults were baptized accordThe Missouri River has given definition to St. Benedict’s Abbey from ing to the rites for infants. The process of preparits origin. In 1856 our founder Father Henry Lemke, O.S.B. disembarked ing adults for baptism was at Westport, Mo. and soon began to minister in Doniphan, a city with prospects on the banks of the Missouri. Other monks soon followed, renewed at the end of the but when the river changed its course, Prior Augustine Wirth moved 1800’s in China and Africa. the nascent community to the riverfront city of Atchison. In 1929 the Pope Pius XII renewed the Abbey was relocated on the bluffs of the river that defines this corner of Easter vigil in 1951, and the baptism of adults at the Father Daniel McCarthy Kansas. The waters of baptism define us as Christians. One of the earliest Easter vigil was restored to records of baptismal practice, the Didache, instructs that people are to the whole church in 1972 with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. I wished to implement this renewed rite based on the ancient Roman be baptized in the cold running water of a stream. Early baptismal fonts were sunken into the pavement of churches so that the one being baptized practice when I followed the footsteps of Lemke and generations of our could descend into the waters, as Jesus went down into the Jordan at monks to pastor the tri-parishes of Doniphan County: St. Benedict’s, his baptism. One could be immersed in the waters as Jesus was buried Bendena, St. Charles, Troy, St. Joseph’s, Wathena. With the help of in the tomb, and, Peggy Stanton and other parish ministers, we settled on the practice of as Christ rose from celebrating the Easter vigil at Troy, the dead, one could using a temporary baptismal font arise from the waters that was inexpensive to make and to walk in newness permitted the submersion of adults. The font had a cruciform openof life (Romans 6). ing to express our dying and rising The newly baptized with Christ, and its overall shape could come up out of was octagonal, expressive of our the font on the other side, having passed rising to eternal life. The first time through the waters of we used the font, I borrowed the baptism, as did Israel water heater from the Baptist Church through the waters of in Wathena, but, as they are more The temporary baptismal font used by the Trirobust than I, we soon installed an the Red Sea. parishes of Doniphan County. The font is also inline water heater and a recirculaconsidered the womb tion pump. Millie Theis helped to of the church from which her offspring are reborn (John 3). In his trea- make white baptismal gowns, fullThis mosaic of the baptism of tise on Baptism (c. 200), Tertullian says that we are little fishes after the length and pleated for modesty. Jesus shows him as if buried in Although the tri-parishes are example of the big fish Jesus, born in water and abiding in the waters of the tomb. small rural communities, each year baptism. Many ancient baptismal fonts are lined with mosaic images of we welcomed and baptized at least small fish with Jesus, the big fish. We are to learn to breathe under water, one, whether an adult or a child of catechetical age. We thereby learned and so to live from our baptism. In the fourth century, after Christianity was legalized in the Roman to breath under water, as Tertullian said, and came to understand better Empire, the increased numbers of people seeking baptism and the devel- the whole of Christian life in the light of our baptism. These parish experiences continue to inform my research in Rome. opment of the liturgical year all crystallized into the practice of baptizDiscerning what it means to breathe under water is the focus of an ing at the Easter vigil. The baptistery adjacent to the Lateran Basilica, upcoming book entitled Transition in the Vigil, edited and partially Rome’s Cathedral, remains from that era. Its font is a large sunken pool. authored by Father James Leachman of Ealing Abbey, London, and me. It is round to suggest our being born again from the womb of the church. The book will include a The round pool is flanked chapter by a local pastor by eight columns of red and scholar, Father Paul porphyry, which support Turner of St. Munchin of an octagonal lantern above Limerick Parish, Cameron, the pool, suggesting that Mo.. Our goal is to discern we are born again unto from a careful analysis of eternal life and that we the shorter prayer texts come to illumination by and admonitions of the the indwelling Spirit. Easter vigil what differOnce most of Europe ence the experience of had been Christianized, the being baptized, confirmed practice of adult baptism and brought to communion at the Easter Vigil waned makes in the lives of those and infant baptism became initiated into the mystery the norm. The one to three year process of prepara- The font is the entryway into the larger sacramental life of the Church community, as of Christ at the vigil.
Breathing under water
tion of adults for baptism
here in Corpus Christi Catholic Church, Lawrence, Kan.
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