Menu

Awe-Inspiring Rites Series

Easter Vigil 2019 (90)

Awe-Inspiring: Anointed in the Spirit

, , , ,

In our last post on the 4th century mystagogical catecheses I (Kent) mentioned that among the primary biblical images for baptism is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The patterns for pre-baptismal and post-baptismal anointings vary across regions (Rome had two post-baptismal anointings, other places only one pre-baptismal anointing). All of these anointings unpacked symbolically the nature and significance of baptism, especially the bestowal of the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized. Ambrose alone provides us with an abundant symbolic reflection.

According to Ambrose, in Milan the post-baptismal anointing with chrism (perfumed olive oil, often with balsam, myrrh, and other spices and oils) was no parsimonious anointing. Yarnold writes, “The chrism was not dabbed with the thumb, as it is today, but poured over the head so that it ran down like the oil which the psalmist describes running down Aaron’s beard” ([Psalm 133:2]; Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, 28). “Why,” Ambrose asks, “over your heads? ‘Because the faculties of the wise man are situated in his head,’ says Solomon [Ecclesiastes 2:14]. Wisdom without grace is inert, then its work begins to move toward fulfillment. This is called regeneration” (Yarnold, 120). So anointing after baptism in Milan signifies the regeneration effected by the Spirit.

Ambrose also interprets the post-baptismal anointings as messianic and priestly: “Each one is anointed for the priesthood, anointed for the Kingdom, a spiritual kingdom and a spiritual priesthood” (Yarnold, 128). Here the symbolism is oriented toward the “anointing” of the Spirit upon Christ in his baptism. The Christian participates in Christ’s anointing, an anointing for participation in Christ’s reign and in his priesthood over creation.

Yet, there is more. The anointings symbolize the gifts that the Spirit brings to the newly baptized. Ambrose:

The spiritual sealing follows….For after the ceremonies of the font, it still remains to bring the whole to perfect fulfillment. This happens when the Holy Spirit is infused at the priest’s invocation: ‘the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, the Spirit of holy fear. These might be called the seven ‘virtues’ of the Spirit. It is true that all virtues belong to the Spirit; but these are, so to speak, the cardinal, the fundamental virtues….These are the seven virtues you receive when you are sealed’” (Yarnold, 124).

This reference to the gifts of the Spirit composes the text that will become what the bishop speaks in the western rite of confirmation:

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought these your servants to new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, freeing them from sin: send upon them, O Lord, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete; give them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety; fill them with the spirit of the fear of the Lord (https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Confirmation/Confirmation-Texts.shtml).

From Ambrose alone the richness of the symbolism of the post-baptismal anointings is apparent. But there is even more. As Yarnold says, “In all these rites, therefore, the purpose is to confer the Holy Spirit. But the effects of the gift of the Holy Spirit are described in many different ways: perfecting, confirming, giving divinity and spiritual perception, an anticipation of heaven, strength against the devil” (Yarnold, 38). In Baptism as symbolized by the post-baptismal anointings, the Holy Spirit is the anointing and the anointing is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

1024px-Mural_-_Jesus'_Baptism

Awe-Inspiring: Sharing in Jesus’ Jordan Experience

, , , , ,

The images are many but the reality is one. Three weeks ago in this series on the ancient mystagogy, Rhoda led us into the multivalence of the baptismal images. Baptism is both tomb and womb in the mystagogy of Ambrose and Theodore. It also adoption and cleansing and the pouring out of the Spirit (more on that in two weeks in relationship to post-baptismal anointing). A book that brings together all of the images on baptism that I would highly recommend is Maxwell Johnson’s Images of Baptism (originally published by LTP, now available independently on Amazon). But, is there a unifying reality among the images of baptism, something that expresses that baptism is one? I would contend that there is and it is something in Lutheran reflection that doesn’t have a primary place, but that does for the church fathers: The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

As Yarnold (The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, 27) notes, all four mystagogues “refer to Christ’s baptism … in explaining the symbolism of baptism and the way in which it confers grace.” Although, all four explore the import of Jesus’ baptism in different ways. Chrysostom (the text of which is not in Yarnold) “takes it to be a paradigm of Christian baptism: Just as Jesus was baptized by the Word (which led his body down into the Jordan), by the Father (who spoke from heaven), and by the Holy Spirit (who descended), so too we are baptized by the Trinity” (27). Chrysostom grounds the Trinitarian baptism of the Christian in the Trinity’s manifestation at Jesus’ baptism and thus in the life of the Trinity.

Both Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose highlight that “Christ’s entry into the Jordan gave the baptismal water its sanctifying power” (27). This understanding of the significance of Jesus’ baptism will be captured in the various water consecration prayers in the early and medieval church’s baptismal liturgy (Luther’s Flood Prayer is a translation of and develops out of one of these water consecration prayers). Cyril refers to Christ’s descent into the Jordan and the Holy Spirit’s anointing upon Jesus as the basis for the descent, emergence and anointing of the Christian in the pool of baptismal water. He says of Jesus’ action, “Christ bathed in the river Jordan, and having invested the water with the divine presence of his body, he emerged from them, and the Holy Spirit visited him in substantial form, like coming to rest on like” (81-82). Ambrose is even more explicit about the sanctifying power of Jesus and the Spirit when referring to the water consecration prayer in use in Milan [parentheses mine]:

You saw the water, but not all waters have a curative power: only that water has it which has the grace of Christ. There is a difference between the matter and the consecration, between the action and its effect. The action belongs to the water, its effect to the Holy Spirit. The water does not heal unless the Spirit descends and consecrates the water….Christ came down, the Holy Spirit came down. Why did Christ come down first, and the Holy Spirit afterwards, since the normal rite of baptism follows this order: first the water is consecrated [assumed action of the Spirit] and then the candidate for baptism comes into it [Christ’s descent]? For, when the bishops enters [the baptistery], he first performs the exorcism on the creature which is the water, and then utters invocation and prayer that the water may be sanctified and the eternal Trinity may dwell there. But Christ descended first, and the Spirit came after. Why was this [since the liturgical practice seems the opposite]? It was in order that the Lord Jesus might not appear to have need of this mystery of sanctification, but that he himself might sanctify, and that the Spirit might also sanctify (105-107).

Christ has no need of sanctified water, but we DO!

Theodore of Mopsuestia is the most explicit about the connection between Jesus’ baptism and our own:

Our Lord, then, was baptized by John, but not with John’s baptism….He was baptized with our baptism, and presented an anticipation of it….You were baptized with the same baptism that Christ our Lord received in his humanity. This is one reason you are baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’, because the very events of Christ’s baptism foreshadowed your baptism in sign. When the Father said aloud from far off, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’, he was referring in fact to the grace of our adoption, which is the purpose of baptism (195-6).

The Father identifies Jesus as his beloved Son at his baptism. He does this so that same word might be spoken to and over us. By virtue of Jesus’ baptism, we in our baptisms are adopted by name by the Father as His own daughters and sons. All through the power of baptismal water sanctified by the Word in Jesus’ baptism.

Ephesus font

Awe-Inspiring: Baptism as Tomb and Womb

,

Kent ended last week’s post by describing baptism as a “dramatic joining to the Lord Jesus Christ, by renouncing the Evil One, adhering to Jesus, and being washed to new life by drowning and dying in the baptismal tomb and womb.” He quoted extensively from Cyril of Jerusalem and John Chrysostom. Yarnold’s book, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, also includes mystagogical sermons by Ambrose of Milan and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who also use the metaphors of womb and tomb as they reveal the mysteries of baptism. All page references are to Yarnold.

Ambrose of Milan: Tomb Metaphor (drawing on the images of death and resurrection from Romans 6)

To begin his third Sermon on the Sacraments, Ambrose summarizes the previous day’s sermon: “Yesterday the subject of our instruction was the font, which has the shape and appearance of a sort of tomb” (120). Ambrose begins the second sermon with a series of biblical stories that include water. First, he notes the pool at the Sheep Gate, where the angel’s stirring of the water brings healing to one (“How much greater is the grace of the Church in which all those who go down into the water are saved,” 112). Then he reviews narratives from the previous day: Naaman the leper, healed in the Jordan; the flood; the crossing of the Red Sea. A curious choice of narrative follows: Elisha throwing the axe handle in the water after losing the iron head, which then miraculously floats. Ambrose’s allegorical interpretation is that “in the cross of Christ [i.e., the wooden handle] … every [one’s] sickness is lightened” (114). Finally, he comes to an extended discourse on the human condition (Gen 2–3) and its remedy (Romans 6).

Adam “was cast out of paradise” and “became subject to death…. The sentence was divine, and it could not be remitted by humankind. The remedy was found. It was that man should die and rise again. Why? So that what had formerly served as a sentence, should now serve as a gift. And what is this but death? ‘How can this be?,’ you ask. Because death, when it comes, puts an end to sin. When we die, we do indeed stop sinning…. But in order that God’s gift might continue for ever … Christ invented the resurrection, in order to restore the heavenly gift which had been lost through the deceit of the serpent” (116).

“So the apostle exclaims, as you have just heard in the reading, ‘Whoever is baptized, is baptized in the death of Jesus.’ What does ‘in the death’ mean? It means that just as Christ died, so you will taste death; that just as Christ died to sin and lives to God, so through the sacrament of baptism you are dead to the old enticements of sin and have risen again through the grace of Christ. … So you are crucified with him, you are fastened to Christ, you are fastened by the nails of our Lord Jesus Christ lest the devil pull you away. May Christ’s nail continue to hold you, for human weakness seeks to pull you away” (119).

Our Lutheran readers will likely resonate with this language of death and resurrection, for it was Luther’s preferred image for baptism, and it is so appropriate for catechetical formation at this time in the church year. For those of us deeply wedded to the language of Romans 6, Theodore of Mopsuestia is a wake-up call to the multivalent images in Scripture about baptism.

Theodore of Mopsuestia: Tomb and Womb Metaphors Mixed (Romans 6 and John 3)

After a quick summary of the previous day’s homily, Theodore moves from the sealing prior to the baptism to unfolding the meaning of the baptism in water by juxtaposing the opposing language of “new birth,” death, and “rising from the dead,” saying,

“Baptism contains the signs of the new birth which will be manifested in reality when you rise from the dead and recover all that death has stolen from you … You will gain the new birth by rising from the dead to a second existence … you will gain this in reality when the time comes for you to rise again to your new birth; but now you have faith in Christ … and … you must be content with receiving symbols and signs … which affords you certainty of sharing in the blessings to come” (181).

He continues by recounting Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus about being “born from above” (John 3), interpreting the passage by saying that Jesus “speaks of the Spirit because this birth is due to the Spirit’s operation” (182) before switching to Romans 6, linking the ritual of baptism to this text:

“So when I am baptized and put my head under the water, I wish to receive the death and burial of Christ our Lord, and I solemnly profess my faith in this resurrection; when I come up out of the water, this is a sign that I believe am already risen” (183).

The bishop’s blessing of the water transforms it into “the water of second birth” by calling down the Holy Spirit to “make it capable of begetting this awesome birth, making it a womb for sacramental birth” (185).  He continues,

“the one baptized settles in the water as in a kind of womb, like a seed showing no sign of an immortal nature; but once baptized and endowed with the divine grace of the Spirit, his nature is reshaped completely. Once mortal, it becomes immortal; once corruptible, it becomes incorruptible; once changing, it becomes unchanging; by the almighty power of him whom who forms it” (186).

Returning to the invocation of the Spirit upon the water, he says, “In this way the water becomes an awesome womb of the second birth; in this way all who go down into the water are formed again by the grace of the Holy Spirit and born again in another, higher nature …” (187).

Baptsim with water splashing

Awe-Inspiring: Renunciation, Adhesion, and the Baptismal Immersion

, , , , ,

Last week Rhoda provided insights from the ancient mystagogy regarding the giving (tradition) and return (redditio) of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer by the catechumens while on the doorstep of their baptisms. This week we turn to ceremonies that are a part of the baptismal rite itself: the Renunciation of Satan, Adhesion to Christ, and the Baptismal Immersion itself.

               The Renunciation of Satan, sin, end evil—still part of both western and eastern baptismal rites—was a dramatic event in the early church. The candidate for baptism faced Satan, turning to the west, and renounced him “in the face.” In some places the candidate knelt to do this, reflecting his bondage to sin. Cyril of Jerusalem in his mystagogy says of this dramatic rejection:

You are told to stretch out your hand, and to address the devil as if he were before you: I renounce you, Satan. I will tell you know, for you need to know, why you face westward. The west is the quarter from which darkness appears to us; now the devil is darkness, and wields his power in darkness. So we look to the west as a symbolic gesture, and renounce the leader of shadow and darkness. So what each of you said was: “I renounce you Satan, you wicked and most cruel tyrant,” and your meaning was, “I no longer fear your power. For Christ has dissolved that power by sharing with me in blood and flesh, so that he might annihilate death by death and save me from subjection to eternal slavery (Yarnold, 71).

Here is a dramatic reorientation of lordship. The candidates revile Satan’s rule.

               And as part of that reorientation they adhere to Christ—a ceremony only retained in eastern baptismal rites. For this act of adhering to the lordship of the true Lord of all creation, Christ Jesus, the candidate faces east. As Cyril says,

The gates of God’s paradise are open to you, that garden which God planted in the east, and from which our first parent was expelled for his transgression. When you turned from west to east, the region of light, you symbolized this change of allegiance. Then you were told to say: “I believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in one baptism of repentance” (Yarnold, 74-75).

John Chrysostom describes the renunciation and the adhesion as a contract/covenant. The candidate is annulling one contract with Satan and signing another contract with the Lord Jesus. In his words,

Have you seen the terms of the contract? After the renunciation of the Evil One and all the works he delights in, the priest instructs you to speak again as follows: And I pledge myself, Christ, to you. Do you see the overwhelming goodness of God? From you he receives only words, yet he entrusts to you realities, a great treasure. He forgets your past ingratitude; he remembers nothing of your past; he is content with these few words. And those few words bind the candidate to Christ, covenanting and cementing the relationship between Lord and believer (Yarnold, 158-9).

               In the baptismal waters the acts of renunciation and adhesion reach their culmination as the candidate is drowned and her sinfulness is washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Depending upon the size of the baptismal pool, the candidate’s entire body was submersed under the water or the candidate stood in water to their knees or thighs and water was poured profusely over their entire body. As Cyril recounts the baptismal dying,

Then you were conducted by the hand to the holy pool of sacred baptism, just as Christ was conveyed from the cross to the sepulcher which stands before us [literally in Jerusalem!]. Each person was asked if he believed in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. You made the confession that brings salvation, and submerged yourselves three times in the water and emerged: by this symbolic gesture you were secretly re-enacting the burial of Christ three days in the tomb….In one and the same action you died and were born; the water of salvation became both tomb and mother for you (Yarnold, 77-78).

As one person has said, there is no missing the moment with baptismal submersion/immersion. This is death and resurrection, being born to new life. As Chrysostom says,

He takes you down into the sacred waters, at the same time burying the old nature and raising “the new creature, which is being renewed after the image of the creator” [Colossians 3:10]. Then by the words of the priest and by his hand the presence of the Holy Spirit flies down upon you and another man comes up out of the font, one washed from all the stain of his sins, who has put off the old garment of sin and is clothed in the royal robe (Yarnold, 161).

A dramatic joining to the Lord Jesus Christ, by renouncing the Evil One, adhering to Jesus, and being washed to new life by drowning and dying in the baptismal tomb and womb.

Cropped Church_of_the_Pater_Noster_yo_rn_nah_cr_ln_si

Traditio: Handing over the Creed and Lord’s Prayer

, ,

Two weeks ago Kent introduced this current series, Awe-Inspiring Rites, during which we are gleaning treasures from early church writers about the rituals associated with the adult catechumenate. Kent wrote about the exorcisms, important rituals during Lent, the period of Enlightenment. Today we’ll examine the traditio, handing over of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer to the catechumens. The Creed was used in the baptismal liturgy, and so candidates for baptism needed to learn this text by heart for the redditio, the giving back, as their confession of faith in the baptismal ritual.

We have 18 catechetical Lenten sermons by Cyril of Jerusalem, 13 of which are on the creed, phrase by phrase. According Yarnold, the usual practice of “handing over” was done orally, and “no one must write it down” (Ambrose, Explanatio Symboli, 9, referenced in Yarnold, 13, fn. 53). The Creed and the Lord’s Prayer were treated as “secret” or “mysteries” to which only those initiated (or about to be) had access. Those readers old enough to remember the stressful “questioning” on Luther’s Catechism prior to the Rite of Confirmation will be able to empathize with the nervous jitters of fourth-century baptismal candidates. We see the pastoral side of Augustine in this quote:

Today week you will have to repeat what you have learnrt today. You godparents are responsible for teaching you … No one need be nervous and so fail to repeat the words. Do not worry, I am your father. I do not carry a strap or a cane like a schoolmaster.

Quoted in Yarnold, 13.

There was greater variation regarding the Lord’s Prayer; in some areas, it was handed over during Lent; in other regions, teaching the Lord’s Prayer was part of the post-baptismal mystagogy. Theodore of Mopsuetia (in Syria) is an example of the former practice:

I have already instructed you sufficiently about the rites which according to ancient tradition the candidates for baptism must celebrate. When you present yourselves to give in your names, in the hope of finding a dwelling-place in heaven, the exorcisms are, so to say, a lawsuit with the devil; you are freed from slavery to him by God’s judgment. So you recite the word of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer; and there and then through the mediation of the bishops you make an undertaking to persevere in love towards God’s being.

Quoted in Yarnold, 168.

Of course, today there is nothing “secret” about these texts, but we know the value of learning these texts “by heart.” They are there for us at the deathbed of a loved one, in the hospital pre-op room before emergency surgery, for all those times when words fail us. And when the memory of loved ones fades, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer can be one of the ways we still connect with these dear ones. To know these texts, Theodore of Mopsuetia tells us, give us power over the devil and enables us to persevere in love towards God.

Today’s photos are from the Church of the Pater Noster on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Empress Helena built a church there in the fourth century over a cave which, according to tradition, was the secret place where Jesus taught his disciples (perhaps commemorating the eschatological discourse in the Synoptic Gospels). That church was destroyed by the Persians in the seventh century; the site became associated with the Lord’s Prayer during the Crusader period (twelfth century). Today the walls of the compound surrounding the excavations of the fourth-century church are adorned with ceramic tile plaques in various languages, a symbol of the ecumenical (worldwide) church.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Photo credits: Church of the Pater Noster, Mount of Olives, Jerusalem

Banner Photo Author: Britchi Mirela, 23 October 2014; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_the_Pater_Noster_yo_rn_nah_cr_ln_si.jpg. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

+++++

English Lord’s Prayer Author: Alistair from Montreal, Canada; 2 December 2009; https://www.flickr.com/people/93958158@N00; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_the_Pater_Noster_en.jpg. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Baptismal font at Hippo

Awe-Inspiring: Insights from the Ancient Mystagogy of the Church

, , , ,

Today we start a new series reflecting on the catechumenate of the 4th-5th century church. In 1971 Edward Yarnold published a collected edition of all the ancient mystagogical catecheses of the church fathers (The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A, Second Edition, Collegeveille, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1994; unfortunately no longer in print). While many church fathers comment on the ritual process of the catechumenate and on the catechetical teaching that accompanied it, four church fathers wrote their mystagogy (catechetical commentary on the rites, usually post-Baptism) and so they are available today. These four church fathers include: Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. (Although Augustine preached baptismal catechetical sermons, we don’t have a complete set of mystagogical lectures from him). Yarnold’s book provides an introductory overview of the catecheses, oriented toward grounding the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the ancient catechumenate. Translations of the four mystagogues above follows his introduction.

Each of the mystagogues taught the significance of what happened in the rites of initiation in different ways, with different emphases, and in association with some rites that may have been unique to their context. We hope to introduce some of the unique and compelling ways in which the mystagogues teach what happened to the catechumens as the church incorporated them into the life of Christ through the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit. As with the mystagogues, our focus will be on aspects of the rite and the rich symbolism that envelops them.

Throughout the period of Lenten Enlightenment exorcisms were a common feature of the early catechumenate. Baptism entailed a move from the lordship of Satan, sin, evil, and death to the lordship of Christ Jesus and his life, holiness, and mercy. The exorcisms dramatically conveyed the shift in lordship for the catechumen. They now owed their life and allegiance to the Lord over all creation, life, and death and not to the powers and principalities of the Evil One. Chrysostom describes the exorcisms in this way,

So you need to know why it is that after the daily instruction we send you off to hear the words of the exorcists. This rite is neither a simple one nor a pointless. You are about to receive the heavenly King into your house. So those who are appointed for this task, just as if they were preparing a house for a royal visit, take you on one side after our sermon, and purify your minds by those fearful words, putting to flight all the tricks of the evil one, and so make the house fit for the presence of the King. For no demon, however, fierce and harsh, after these fearful words and the invocation of the universal Lord of all things, can refrain from flight with all speed. And, in addition, the rite imprints great reverence in the soul and leads it to great sorrow for sin (Yarnold, 156).

As Chrysostom notes, there is no difference of rank here. All—the wealthy, the powerful, the poor, the dispossessed—must be exorcised, for all fall under the power of the Evil One prior to baptism. Usually they came in bare feet with their outer garments removed and with hands outstretched pleading to the Lord for their removal from the kingdom of evil. In St. Augustine’s Hippo, this attitude of repentance toward and intentional rejection of the Evil One’s rule was reflected in the sack-cloth made of goat’s hair. As Yarnold indicates,

The symbolism of the goat’s fleece is fourfold:

  1. Sack-cloth is the traditional sign of penitence;
  2. It recalls the tunics of skin worn by Adam and Eve after the fall and so reminds the candidate of original sin;
  3. It is an acknowledgement of the candidate’s former slavery to the devil;
  4. The trampling of the goat’s hair shows that the candidate wishes to be numbered among the sheep rather than the goats at the Last Judgement (Yarold, 10-11).

The mystagogues are in dread earnest! This is life or death business. The catechumens can only embrace the true life when the Lord has exorcised them from the rule of the Great Liar and Deceiver.