This past Sunday, on the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, my youngest son, Gabriel, was baptized at Saint Thomas. Because of health precautions, only his immediate family, grandparents, and godparents were present in the Chantry Chapel. So the baptism of our second child was an evident contrast from the more public baptism of his brother, Samuel, one pre-pandemic Candlemas evening three years ago. But it was undeniably the same font. And undeniably the same baptism. What living poetry! One Lord. One Faith. One Baptism.
At little more than a year old, Gabriel is truly a child of this pandemic, born under its shadow. Yet, for his family, he has brought such illumination to the entire scenario. His beautiful presence with us has called us to higher levels of devotion and love, all in glorious counterpoint with his elder sibling. But, because he is so very young, it is his sublime ignorance of our current plight that is so very liberating. This little one, a governing force of our household, is not bound by the concerns and demands of the pandemic. Gabriel may have been “born and bred in the briar patch,” but he experiences life at his own rhythm, with all things fresh and new. Every day is a discovery, surprise, or drama for Gabriel that takes his parents to another plane of existence. His experience is so direct and immediate that I find that it overcomes most any sense of loss or worry related to the pandemic. Caring for this nearly blithe spirit serves as a kind of safe harbor for our spirits in the current storm.
For the baptism of infants, it is indeed the ignorance of the child that does even more holy work. At least it does for me. The dramatic irony is so acute. The baby has no idea what is going on. But the waters of baptism summon a truly oceanic blessing. The candidate is surrounded by the love of their family, their church, the saints, the angels, and the Triune God. They are being set on a path with Christ that is bigger than all of us put together. They have no clue of the unfathomable depth of holy goodness that is being poured over them, and yet it happens all the same! We call it prevenient grace, and the baptism of infants is only an especially vivid example of that same grace of God that comes to us when, truth be told, we adults often barely have a clue ourselves! Or, if we do, it is often quite the task to keep alert to all of the good things that God has given us, as His adopted children: resilient blessings that shine in the dark, as do the bioluminescent, like some deeper magic. Christ’s Church calls us to participate in the beauty of this world, while also bearing the darkness of our incoherent world, while repenting of all that brokenness, bringing it all to the altar and to the font so that our hope might be revived in communion with Christ and as Christ’s body: both beautiful and salvific, with the wisdom to overwhelm our ignorance!
If little Gabriel was “born and bred in the briar patch,” thanks to his baptism, he has also been “born and bred in the garden of paradise,” born a second time as a living sign of the inbreaking of heaven on earth. I thank God for the chance to have been both a participant and witness to this, up close and personal. And I thank God for Saint Thomas Church, our holy harbor in the storm.
Love’s hidden thread has drawn us to the font,
A wide womb floating on the breath of God,
Feathered with seraph wings, lit with the swift
Lightning of praise, with thunder over-spread,
And under-girded with an unheard song,
Calling through water, fire, darkness, pain,
Calling us to the life for which we long,
Yearning to bring us to our birth again.
Again the breath of God is on the waters
In whose reflecting face our candles shine,
Again he draws from death the sons and daughters
For whom he bid the elements combine.
As living stones around a font today,
Rejoice with those who roll the stone away.
–Malcom Guite
