An important part of our Easter celebration is the renewal of our baptismal promises. This is an opportunity, here and now and in full public view, to truly confess our faith in Jesus Christ. By these words we sign and seal our part in a covenant/contract that Jesus sealed with his blood on the Cross. This is a most serious moment for we will be held to account for our responsibilities arising from this covenant/contract on judgement day.
BAPTISM
(from the Easter Vigil)
Dearly beloved, with one heart and one soul, let us by our prayers come to the aid of these our brothers and sisters in
their blessed hope,
so that, as they approach the font of rebirth,
the almighty Father may bestow on them
all his merciful help.
O God, who by invisible power accomplish a wondrous effect through sacramental signs and who in many ways have prepared water, your creation, to show forth the grace of Baptism;
O God, whose Spirit in the first moments of the world’s creation hovered over the waters, so that the very substance of water would even then take to itself the power to sanctify;
O God, who by the outpouring of the flood
foreshadowed regeneration, so that from the mystery of one and the same element of
water would come an end to vice and a beginning of virtue;
O God, who caused the children of Abraham to pass dry-shod through the Red Sea, so that the chosen people, set free from slavery to Pharaoh,
would prefigure the people of the baptized;
O God, whose Son, baptized by John in the waters of the Jordan, was anointed with the Holy Spirit,
and, as he hung upon the Cross, gave forth water from his side along with blood, and after his Resurrection, commanded his disciples:
“Go forth, teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit,”
look now, we pray, upon the face of your Church and graciously unseal for her the fountain of Baptism.
May this water receive by the Holy Spirit the grace of your Only Begotten Son, so that human nature, created in your image and washed clean through the Sacrament of Baptism from all the squalor of the life of old,
may be found worthy to rise to the life of newborn
children through water and the Holy Spirit.
(lowering the paschal candle into the
water)
May the power of the Holy Spirit, O Lord, we pray,
come down through your Son into the fullness of this font, and, holding the candle in the water, he continues:
so that all who have been buried with Christ by Baptism into death may rise again to life with him.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
R. Amen.
(The people acclaim:)
Springs of water, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all for ever.
Renewal of Baptismal Promises
Dear brothers and sisters, through the Paschal
Mystery
we have been buried with Christ in Baptism,
so that we may walk with him in newness of life.
And so, now that our Lenten observance is concluded,
let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism,
by which we once renounced Satan and his works
and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.
And so I ask you:
Priest: Do you renounce Satan?
All: I do.
Priest: And all his works?
All: I do.
Priest: And all his empty show?
All: I do.
Or:
Priest: Do you renounce sin,
so as to live in
the freedom of the children of God?
All: I do.
Priest: Do you renounce the lure of evil,
so that sin may
have no mastery over you?
All: I do.
Priest: Do you renounce Satan,
the author and
prince of sin?
All: I do.
And may almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has given us new birth by water and the Holy Spirit and bestowed on us forgiveness of our sins,
keep us by his grace, in Christ Jesus our Lord, for eternal life.
All: Amen.
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