Baptismal Thanksgiving

Throughout the 7 week catechumenate course—which comes to a close next Thursday— I have tried to expose students to primary ritual experiences and the methods of Bible study that introduce catechumens to the biblical metanarrative centered in the Lord Christ Jesus. We have experienced the rites of acceptance, election, and baptismal thanksgiving, the latter this past Thursday. We gathered around the font in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus, gave thanks for the Word and waters of baptism and of all the waters that pour over us, affirmed the Lord’s baptism of us into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and prayed that God might lead us into the baptismal way of truth and life. [If you are interested in this rite of baptismal thanksgiving, send me an email, burresonk@csl.edu. Some of the texts are copyrighted and so I can’t provide them here, but I’ll aim to make an outline of the service available on my Substack site (https://substack.com/@kentjburreson).]  The students asked questions about how and when to incorporate this rite into the Sunday liturgy, and all recognized how it could be formational toward a baptismally oriented life.

We have also experienced three primary Bible study methods often employed in the catechumenate: The African (Lambeth) method, the Luther 4-Strand Garland method, and the Visualization method, the latter on Monday. The Visualization method entails:

• The Gospel text is read two times.
• Each team collaborates creatively to visualize the story in some way. They may choose to
  • Act it out
    • In a very literal way; or
    • By setting it in a new context
  • Draw it out, using
    • A cartoon format or
    • Artistic rendering
  • Write a song. Could be a simple, memorable refrain, or a metered hymn employing imagery conveying the text. Perhaps …
    • To the tune of a familiar hymn or
    • To the tune of a secular, popular song
  • Write a poem or haiku.
• Once the groups have completed their visualization each in turn conveys the piece to the entire group in a manner appropriate to the genre they chose: acting it out; discussing the drawing; singing it; reading it.

As is always the case my students were creative in reflection on the gospel reading for the 6^th Sunday of Easter, John 14:15-21. Centering things on Jesus’ words, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” they composed a hymn set to Luther’s “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word,” an AI-generated contemporary image of Jesus welcoming an orphan through the baptismal waters, a poem, and a haiku. Summarizing what students said regarding the strengths of this approach, “It incorporated them into probing the text and developing something that represented that encounter. Since this was done in small groups, everyone contributed and each of their lives of faith were valued by their incorporation into the body of Christ through this creative process.” It’s as though the Visualization method is deepening the baptismal life reflected in the rite of baptismal thanksgiving. What the students did in class had a formative power upon their baptismal lives, and certainly on the baptismal life of this unworthy professor.