Looking for a Book to Explain Baptism

How often are we looking for a good book to help explain a particular topic? It is often the case that new books—we could roughly define that as written in the past decade—are the easiest to find, quite likely will be easy to read, and more or less cover the topic needed, but are somehow lacking in depth. Most new books look more like paperback versions of a collection of blog posts than a “real” book.

If, on the other hand, the priest looks to the Church Fathers, the texts are often archaic and tedious, which might simply be a result of the style of translation employed. And even if the text is not actually difficult to read, the impression can still remain that any book with a saint as an author will be too hard to understand.

Neither of the books I intend to cover in this book review, of sorts, fit neatly into either of these categories. Both cover the meaning of the Mystery of Baptism and extend their discussion into Chrismation and the Eucharist, both are a wealth of information, but would either be accessible to the average catechumen or church-goer?

With that objective in mind, I will take a look at two books that might be of help in the area of teaching about Baptism, Chrismation, and the Eucharist, and really, the whole of the sacramental life: Of Water and the Spirit, written in the 1970s by Priest Alexander Schmemann, and also The Life in Christ from the 14th century, by St. Nicholas Cabasilas. A foundational understanding of the sacramental life is not only essential for Orthodox Christians, but is something that is often foreign to the converts coming into the Orthodox Church.