A Baptismal Font
The Baptismal Font at the Shrine Church
"Liturgical designers, Robert Rambusch and Mario Locsin, turned to scriptural, liturgical and historical tradition for inspiration. They used the original baptismal font as the base for a rectangular bowl into which infants are dipped as they are baptized. The base is emerald pearl granite and stands three feet tall. Holy water flows up through the base, into the bowl and spills over into a large octagon-shaped pool. Adults and older children step into this pool with the presider during the baptismal rite. The flow of holy water from the upper pool is deliberately offset to the right to symbolize the spear wound on Christ’s side from which blood—like the font’s
water—poured forth. “Those who are baptized are engrafted in the likeness of Christ’sdeath. They are buried with him, they are given life again with him and with him they rise again,” declares the Rites of the Catholic Church.
The baptismal font was designed as an octagon because it is a circle—the symbol of eternity—made by straight lines. To the early Christians, the number eight indicated perfection and completion, for the world was made in seven days and the supernatural order of grace into which we are initiated through Baptism completes the work of creation. “The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation
in Christ, the splendor of which surpasses that of the first creation,” the Catholic Catechism teaches. Eight was the symbol for Christ’s resurrection. It is for these reasons that the octagon is repeated in the shape of the church proper, the Saint Thérèse chapel and the font."
courtesy of: Shrine Church Virtual Tour
"Liturgical designers, Robert Rambusch and Mario Locsin, turned to scriptural, liturgical and historical tradition for inspiration. They used the original baptismal font as the base for a rectangular bowl into which infants are dipped as they are baptized. The base is emerald pearl granite and stands three feet tall. Holy water flows up through the base, into the bowl and spills over into a large octagon-shaped pool. Adults and older children step into this pool with the presider during the baptismal rite. The flow of holy water from the upper pool is deliberately offset to the right to symbolize the spear wound on Christ’s side from which blood—like the font’s
water—poured forth. “Those who are baptized are engrafted in the likeness of Christ’sdeath. They are buried with him, they are given life again with him and with him they rise again,” declares the Rites of the Catholic Church.
The baptismal font was designed as an octagon because it is a circle—the symbol of eternity—made by straight lines. To the early Christians, the number eight indicated perfection and completion, for the world was made in seven days and the supernatural order of grace into which we are initiated through Baptism completes the work of creation. “The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation
in Christ, the splendor of which surpasses that of the first creation,” the Catholic Catechism teaches. Eight was the symbol for Christ’s resurrection. It is for these reasons that the octagon is repeated in the shape of the church proper, the Saint Thérèse chapel and the font."
courtesy of: Shrine Church Virtual Tour
