Ad Orientum

Directionality in the Pre-Baptismal Rites

In The Life in Christ, Nicholas Cabasilas outlines how the initiation rites of Baptism, Chrism, and Eucharist serve to fulfill the words of Christ to Nicodemus regarding our “second birth”. Diving more specifically into Baptism, we see that by our Baptism we gain “our very being and nature, having previously been nothing.” (Cabasilias, The Life in Christ, 66) This idea of “being” occurs frequently among the Fathers, and is always understood as opposed to a kind of “non-being” which we possess prior to our new birth in the Baptismal font. Whatever we were before ceases to matter as move toward the Ground of all Being itself through our following of Christ into the waters that are at once our grave, and a womb. We move from darkness to light, becoming “illumined” and being made “known to God”. (Cabasilias, The Life in Christ, 67-68)

This movement into the light and life of Christ however, begins somewhat before our submersion in the waters. Following the exorcism in the Narthex, the Catechumen is instructed to face west, and to blow (exorcise) upon “Satan, and all his works, and all his worship, and all his angels, and all his pomp” (Najim & O'Grady, Services of Initiation, 43) in a section of the rite called the Renunciation. Here we see in ritual form, the acknowledgment of the fallen orientation that we find ourselves possessing before acquiring being in Baptism. We face Satan, his works and his pomp, and we must exhale upon him all of these ills which we have participated in hitherto. This Renunciation (Apotaxis) is first required in order to then turn East, toward the Faithful and the Altar of God Most High, back toward the Garden from whence we have fallen, and to take the next steps of Aligning (Syntaxis) which we see first expressed by our recitation of the Creed, the Symbol of our Faith. (St. Cyril, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, 93)

When we come to the font itself we really follow Christ into the very waters which his own Baptism has sanctified. The Priest first consecrates the water, in a kind of epiclesis, whereby the Holy Spirit is invited to descend and “...sanctify this water, and give to it the grace of redemption, the blessing of the Jordan.” (Najim & O'Grady, Services of Initiation, 55) It is is participation in the very Baptism of Christ which brings us to the next stage of our entry into, and becoming part of, the New Creation.

At John's Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, which waters we also find ourselves thrice dipped into, “He ascended the waters, and the Holy Spirit came upon him in substantial form, like resting on like.” (St. Cyril, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, 105) In a similar way, upon being raised from the Baptismal waters, and in the form of the Holy Myron, the Holy Spirit comes to rest again. We see and experience the same waters, the same Spirit, and the image and likeness of God, once lost, and now regained. “We go forward to the Chrism, the participation in the Spirit...[now] there is nothing which prevents the Holy Spirit from being 'poured out upon all flesh' that is, as far as this life can bear it.” (Cabasilias, The Life in Christ, 105)

Within my own initiation into the Church, I recall being struck (and continue to be remarkably amazed) at the use of orientation in the worship, but particularly in the Pre-Baptismal rites. The facing west and exhaling upon “Satan and all his works” before turning back toward Eden, where planted is the Tree of Life itself, was and is significant. This served as an early introduction to the basic concept of directionality in life and choices as we see expressed in many of the Fathers, St. Maximus in particular. The Natural Will wants us to face East. It longs to return to the Garden of Paradise. It is restless, for it seeks that rest which can only be found in the Creator who is both its origin and its end. With each choice, we move toward God, or away from Him. Our gaze and our attention must be oriented toward that prototype which has given us both form and being. There is no static position of neutrality. We are either “being” Christ, or we are ceasing to “be” anything. We move in the direction we face, be it toward the Altar or away from it. If the Baptismal waters be a womb, it is into their depths and through them that we must face and go, entering into the “House of God” through the “Door of Heaven” to borrow the language of the Patriarch Jacob at Bethel. Then is our first breath into this new being the very breath of God into our own nostrils of clay, and like Adam we “become a living soul”. As Jacob saw at Bethel however, there is a ladder. The orientation must be maintained, and the movement must continue. To cease moving onward and upward, is to fall down the hill once again, with a broken crown.