The Baptismal Font
The water in the baptismal font flows from a smaller font where infants will normally be immersed into a lower pool in which adults will kneel as water is poured over them. The water continues in a wide arc which embraces the tabernacle, showing the unity of baptism and eucharist as sacraments of initiation.
One of the most beautiful images used in Christian literature to describe the meaning of baptism is that of the Church as mother who, through the waters of the font, gives birth to a new Christian. This has been stunningly expressed in Carrara marble by sculptor, Peter Schipperheyn. The new-born child symbolises the new Christian emerging from the waters of the font to become part of the family of the Church. The spiral, a form picked up in the font itself, represents the baptismal cycle of death and rebirth. The sculpture is serene and still, sensuous and yet pure; it is classical in its technique, romantic in its emotion and yet undeniably contemporary in its representation of materials – flesh, cloth, water, hair, stone are at times indistinguishable.
Inscribed on the floor near the font is a verse from the 5th century poem of Pope Sixtus III developing the baptismal theme of the church as mother. It comes from the walls of the baptistery of St John Lateran, the cathedral of the city of Rome.
Here a people of godly race are born for heaven; the Spirit gives them life in the fertile waters. The Church-Mother, in these waves, bears her children like virginal fruit she has conceived by the Holy Spirit.
The paschal candle and the holy oils are normally kept near the baptismal font and are used during the celebration of baptism. The paschal candle is the work of silversmith, Hendrik Forster, who also made the sanctuary candelabra. The doors to the holy oils cabinet were made by Warren Langley. The cabinet contains Chrism, Oil of the Sick and Oil of Catechumens.