Dear Friends,

Last week we talked a bit about the prayer used to bless the water that is poured into the font. As I mentioned last week, this prayer is the central moment, the highlight of the baptismal liturgy and it very much parallels the form of our Eucharistic Prayer said over the bread and wine. As important as that prayer is to the liturgy of the Eucharist, it is the communing of the people with the bread and wine that is most meaningful to us, as the disciples of Jesus. Following the prayer of the blessing of the water we come to the actual baptism itself. This moment of baptism is certainly the most meaningful for the baptized and his or her family, a moment that involves the whole gathered community and our celebration of adding another believer to the faith. I know last week I wrote that I wanted to discuss Chrism and Chrismation this week, but I will hold off on this for the next week or two. This week, I want to discuss the act of the baptism itself.

As I mentioned early on in this series, in the earliest church, baptism was normally by immersion. The word “baptize” comes from the Greek word, “Baptizo” which means “to dip” or “to wash.” Baptism by pouring water over the candidate’s head, also called “affusion,” was practiced, however, at least as early as the second century. If, for example, there wasn’t sufficient water to immerse the candidate, they would be baptized by affusion. If the physical condition of a candidate made it impossible to immerse them, they would be baptized by affusion. The 1549 Prayer Book literally calls for a triple immersion to be “discreetly and warily done.” The rubrics from that Prayer Book say, “Then the priest shall take the child in his hands, and ask the name; and naming the child shall dip it in the Water thrice. First, dipping the right side; second the left side; the third time dipping the face toward the font: so it be discreetly and warily done.” (1549 BCP pg. 237) I am not sure what “discreetly and warily done” actually means, but it sounds very Anglican. The 1549 Prayer Book, however, did allow for affusion. The rubrics say, “If the child be weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it.” (1549 BCP pg. 237). Interesting to note the pronoun as “it” not him or her. I am not certain what that is all about.

Notice in this rubric, at the time of baptism the candidate was called by name. There is evidence for this custom in the liturgy as early as the 8th century. Naming the child at baptism had become a pretty general practice by the end of the medieval period. Some of the liturgies that came out of the Continental Reformation connected naming with baptism as well. The Continental Reformation was different from the English Reformation and included the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, to name the major players, all reformers on the continent of Europe.

There are various precedents. In Judaism, for example, naming was a part of the circumcision on the eighth day. As early as the third century, there is evidence that converts to the faith exchanged names with pagan associations for names with Christian significance at some point during the process of initiation. This may be where the Roman Catholic practice of taking a saint’s name began, something that is not as prevalent today as it was. Since the late medieval period, it had been legislated in some areas that baptism should occur within the first eight days after the birth of the child, the baptism being the occasion on which the name was made known. The catechism printed within the Rite of Confirmation in the 1549 Prayer Book began with two questions, “What is your name? and “Who gave you this name? The answer to the second question was “My Godfathers and Godmothers in my Baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” (1549 BCP pg. 245. I love the Confirmation Rite in the 1549 Prayer Book, it is very cool and I wish we had retained more of it. This practice of naming the child at their baptism has slowly waned over the years. In the words of the late Marion Hatchett, one of the primary liturgical theologians that shaped our 1979 Payer Book, “Since baptisms have ceased to be the time of publication of the name, and since only rarely is a person’s name changed at baptism, there seems to be little merit in perpetuating this tradition and much merit in restoring the earlier, more catholic custom of presenting the candidate by name.”[i] As we looked at earlier in this series, the candidates are presented by the parents and godparents just before they take their vows and answer the three renunciations and the three affirmations. It is true, the presentation is the point at which the name of the baptized is emphasized, however, if you have been a part of a baptismal service that I have done, you will notice that I have not given up the idea of naming the child just before they are baptized. As I take a child into my arms, or invite a toddler to step up on a stool, I will turn to the parents and godparents and say to them, “Name this child.” Maybe it is nostalgia on my part, but I think this is something important that I don’t want to lose from our tradition. It is also clear, however, that Protestant Christians, to my knowledge, have not embraced the idea of taking a different name, a saint’s name, at the time of their baptism. Our understanding is that God loves us and recognizes us by the name we have been given and there is no need to adopt the name of a saint at the time of our baptism.

Next week I want to talk a bit more about the baptismal formula before moving on to the subject of Chrism and Chrismation. 

Peace,

Dave

[i] Marion Hatchett, Commentary on the American Prayer Book, Harper Collins, New York, NY; 1995; pp. 277.