What is a Font used for?

The font at Portsmouth Cathedral is placed right in the middle of the Cathedral. People are often baptised at Easter and begin a new journey of faith into the fullness of life which Jesus offer to us all. 

The font (the name is like the word ‘fountain’), is where water is blessed and then poured over each person’s head three times. Sometimes people even step down into the water and get really wet!

Why not dip your fingers in the water, or give it a little splash – and ask God to pour out love and blessing on your friends and family? Or put a little bit of the water on your own head or forehead, and ask God to pour out love and blessing for you?  

Can you read any of the words around the font? They talk about baptism as the end of an old way of life and the beginning of a new life; a sort of death and a new birth: we remember Jesus dying and rising again: 

When you went down into the water it was like night and you could see nothing but when you came up again it was like finding yourself in the day that one moment was your death and your birth. That saving water was both your grave and your mother