Mystical Waters

“Today the Jordan flows with salvation, and the world was reborn in its mystical waters.” – Antiphon, First Vespers of the Baptism

This evocative antiphon which we sang at First Vespers points to one of the key themes of today’s feast: Jesus didn’t need to be cleansed by the waters of the Jordan; rather, he cleansed the waters and made them – and all of creation – holy.

Guerric of Igny, in his Fourth Sermon for Epiphany, makes a connection between the Baptism of the Lord and the story of Naaman, who was told by the prophet Elisha: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times” (1 Kings 5:10).  You remember the story: Naaman, commander of the Aramean army, and a leper, seeks healing from a prophet of Samaria at the suggestion of his Israelite slave girl.  On being sent to the river Jordan, he asks, huffily, what was wrong with the rivers of his native place.  But when persuaded by his aides to swallow his pride, he goes, washes and “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean” (2 Kings 5:14).  It is the seven times of washing that piques Guerric’s interest.  He comments that, had it been three times, he would have taken it simply as a figure of Baptism.  But since it is seven times, he sees it as a figure of how, even after the definitive cleansing our Baptism, we need to be cleansed again and again to return to our identity as children of God whenever we have strayed from it.  More to the point, perhaps, we can be cleansed again and again no matter how often we fall.  We are offered a new start seven times a day.

Remember what the Psalmist has to say about prayer: “Seven times a day I praise you” (Psalm 119:64/RB 16:3).  Though St Benedict uses this to frame the seven day hours of the Divine Office, we know that its deeper meaning is that we should pray, not just seven times, but all the time, whenever we have a chance.  Likewise, we are told: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times” (1 Kings 5:10), meaning go and wash all the time, whenever you have a chance!  This reminds me of our COVID-era handwashing protocol.  Wash your hands seven times a day, all the time, whenever you have a chance.  We get tired of this, don’t we, just as we tire of seeking pardon for our sins, and we think to ourselves, maybe I don’t really need to do this again, maybe five times is enough.  The point I would like to make is not really about good hygiene, or even frequent confession, but about the deeper meaning that can be sought and found even in something as prosaic as daily ablutions.  Christ has made the waters holy.

Mother Miriam Pollard, OCSO, in an unpublished novel entitled, Grace in Pemberley, explores at depth the mysticism of daily life.  For example, she spends some paragraphs rhapsodizing over the meaning and vocation of a spoon!  Today, though, I would like to share her description of taking a bath:
“Stepping into the clear water gave her a sense of ritual.  She felt that she was acting out a request for cleansing, for refreshment, for the re-creation of her heart.  In surrendering her body to a kind of liquid sunlight, she was surrendering as well the last dark places of her inmost being, her mind and the cramped, recalcitrant will long formed into a rejection of the wisdom which had wrought her as she was.  Sitting quietly in a small enamelled tub in the center of a cheerful room, she felt as if an entire sea had thrust itself past the ruins of her last defenses.”

This begs the question: what if every encounter with water were a mystical one?  Now, it’s not as if we start washing our dishes at the sink and we swoon.  No, the mysticism of daily life is not an interruption of the ordinary, but a deepening of it.  The waters are holy.  We wash our bodies, our hands, our dishes seven times a day.  Each encounter with the gift of flowing water is an invitation to remember and ritualize the new start offered to us by God.  All we need is to be present, to be attentive and to be grateful.