07-The Baptismal Font

Fonts are often placed at or near the entrance to a church's nave to remind believers of their baptism as they enter the church to pray, since the rite of baptism served as their welcome into the Church.

In many churches of the Middle Ages and Renaissance there was a special chapel or separate baptistry for housing the baptismal fonts, called a baptistery. Both fonts and baptisteries were often octagonal (eight-sided), octagonal fonts becoming more common from the 13th century and the rule from the 14th century.

Saint Ambrose wrote that fonts and baptisteries were octagonal "because on the eighth day, by rising, Christ loosens the bondage of death and receives the dead from their graves".

The cover was enacted in the name of cleanliness and decoration as well, and, besides a close-fitting, cloth-lined lid, there was demanded in many dioceses an outer dome-like cover, sometimes highly ornamented and draped with a canopy or veil. The repugnance to continued repetition of baptism over a font whose water was to last for ten months, was overcome by providing two compartments, one to contain the Baptismal water, the other, always empty and clean to receive the drippings and drain them into the sacrarium.

I, (name), who through the tender mercy of the Eternal Father was privileged to be baptized "in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 19, 5)

To share in the dignity of his divine Sonship, wish now in the presence of this same loving Father and of his only-begotten Son to renew in all sincerity the promises I solemnly made at the time of my holy Baptism. I, therefore, now do once again renounce Satan; I renounce all his works; I renounce all his allurements.

I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, Amen.

Having been buried with Christ unto death and raised up with him unto a new life, I promise to live no longer for myself or for that world which is the enemy of God but for him who died for me and rose again, serving God, my heavenly Father, faithfully and unto death in the holy Catholic Church.

Taught by our Savior's command and formed by the word of God, I now dare to say:
Our Father ...