I have never been a fan of Clemson University.  I have always had a suspicion of colleges who use orange as their colors.  Yet there is a tradition at Clemson and other schools I do admire.  For decades, whenever the home team begins to enter the stadium, each player touches ‘the rock’.  It reminds them they are part of a tradition larger than themselves.  They are part of a family and a story, members of which have been and will continue to be for many years.

   Holy water wall fonts remind us that we enter the Church, the Body of Christ, through our baptism.  They remind us of the family, the tradition, the story into which we were brought through baptism. Francis, Catherine of Siena, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Queen Elizabeth, Richard Hooker and Jesus have all passed through these waters.  For millennia the community of faith has gathered at fonts to recall who they are, recall from where they have come and to welcome new members.

   All Souls has recently installed two wall fonts, one just inside the first doors leading into the front of the church and the other next to the door which leads from the banner room (the old acolyte sacristy) into the church.

   It is customary to dip one’s finger into the wall font of holy water and to make the sign of the cross on one’s forehead.  Each time we do this we recall our baptismal covenant.  In this way we remind ourselves who we are, from where we have come and with whom we sojourn.

Peace,