by Crawford Wiley, ’14 MSM

Oh, now I see the cleansing wave!
The fountain deep and wide;
Jesus, my Lord, mighty to save,
Points to His wounded side.

The cleansing stream, I see, I see! 
I plunge and, oh, it cleanseth me! 
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth me!
It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth me.
—Phoebe Palmer

It is curious that Catholics, who believe that baptism is not only a “sign of profession and mark of difference,”¹ but the effectual symbol of re-birth itself, have largely given up on plunging human bodies into substantial bodies of water, singing vigorous hymns about the thing, while Baptists—who believe precisely that the action is nothing more than that “sign of profession and mark of difference”—do both with vigor.

I was born under a watery sign; why should I not pant for the baptismal seas great and small of this factious Church? As a boy, I was plunged beneath the chlorinated waters of a swimming pool in Bonita Springs, Florida. “Being baptized does not save Crawford in any way,” said the pastor of Gospel Baptist Church before pinching my nose shut to keep out the water as he performed one of the most instantly recognizable rites of the Church: “I baptize you in the name of the Father”—SPLASH— “and of the Son”—SPLASH—“and of the Holy Ghost”—SPLASH. Thus, I was unwittingly made a very member incorporate of the Body of Christ, and was also made very wet under the bright Florida sun.

Some while and a great distance later, I find myself newly Catholic and accompanying the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir, walking barefoot beneath the apocalyptic tympanum of Chartres, shaking at the beauty of so many acres of stone and colored glass, clutching my well-worn little Book of Common Prayer. I walk across to the second column of the first bay on the south side of the Nave and plunge the book in its entirety into the deep Holy Water stoup at the column’s base. The book’s black leather and gilt emerges sopping and sparkling under the jewel-stained light of the Judgment rose window, and I carry it, dripping, as I make my way down the tenebrous aisles and into the sunlight of the ambulatory.

We do not make ourselves. The agency to be does not lie in our own power, and so far from calling ourselves into being, we can scarcely call ourselves into penitence or praise. Dripping, we emerge as humans from the wombs of our earthly mothers, and dripping, as Christians, we emerge from the baptismal wound in the side of our true mother, Christ. What agency do we have but to cry out the Breath from God expelled from us deeper than words: Abba!

With a kindly countenance our good Lord looked into his side, and he gazed with joy, and with his sweet regard he drew his creature’s understanding into his side by the same wound; and there he revealed a fair and delectable place, large enough for all mankind that will be saved and will rest in peace and in love. —St. Julian of Norwich

“I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his Cross,” says the celebrant at the beginning of the Roman rite of baptism. Yet not only the child being baptized, but the whole world, is the cosmic Christ’s: this rite being not only a mundane initiation into the mysteries of a particular religious community, but an enchanted mirror in which we see clearly the hidden splendor of all that is, birthed into crying breath by our gracious Lord who is Love, torn and life-giving.

This is truistic; but do I believe it? I don’t know. Some days the only water I know is the noise of the sea of faith’s long, withdrawing roar.² Some months, even. Perhaps, for all I know, there will be years. But as I lower myself into the bath each morning, my vulnerable flesh immersed in and encompassed by water, I breathe out the ancient words, Blessed are you, Lord our God and sink into an image of the primordial sea of Love, seeing the water drip as particularly from my skilled fingers as on the day I was born. And I know that when I go to work in the organ loft to play another funeral Mass, as I pass the Holy Water stoup these same fingers will break the smooth surface of that small-bounded sea, plunging in, rising, dripping with cross-signed Water, to cross my unquiet head and heart with the sign of Love.

I am a thirsty soul. There is not enough Holy Water in the world for me. I would that baptismal fonts and holy water stoups were at every corner and I would sign this hope of beauty onto the snow and the crocuses, onto my friends and lovers, onto everything I hold dear. We do not make ourselves. The instinct to consecrate what we love by drowning it in water seems to spring from some indelible remembrance buried deep in our collective genetic past.

While driving Westward across the continent: From the womb before the dawn I begot you, cries a voice in the crimson wilderness of Utah; you are my son in whom I am well-pleased, the call of Love whispers across the desolate valleys of Nevada, and I am restless. Until, in the narthex of a chapel on the Big Sur I sprinkle myself cruciform with the dew of Christ’s new birth, the wet symbol of the sea from which all life arose, beating sweetly and restlessly against the California cliffs below, holding all things, bearing my tumultuous body on the waves of Love.

May thy strong hand, O Lord, be ever my defense;
Thy mercy in Christ my salvation;
Thy all-veritable Word my instructor;
The grace of thy life-bringing Spirit my consolation, all along the way and at the last.
The soul of Christ hallow me,
And the body strengthen me,
And the blood ransom me,
And the water wash me,
And the bruises heal me,
And the sweat refresh me,
And the wound hide me!
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
keep my heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God.
—A translation of the Anima Christi, attributed to Lancelot Andrewes

Image Credits:

Steve Corey, Big Sur, Big Surf via Flickr, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

LMP Poolside, via Flickr, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Fredrik Rubensson, Day Trip to Chartres, via Flickr, (CC BY- SA 2.0)

Child with Holy Water Font via iStock photo.

Will Ronning, Utah, courtesy of the author.

1. Book of Common Prayer 1662: Articles of Religion, No. XXVII

2. “The Sea of Faith 
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. 
But now I only hear 
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 
Retreating, to the breath 
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 
And naked shingles of the world. 
—Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach (1867)