As everyone who reads my blog knows, I love both forms of the One Roman Rite, although there are different rites in the Latin Rite to include the new one, the Ordinariate Rite. Can't we all just get along?
I am off the heels of celebrating both forms in the last three days. All Masses in our daily Mass chapel are ad orientem, thus in terms of the OF and EF there is little to no difference in the "orientation" of the priest at the altar.
Sometimes that serves to confuse me, as I am now considered elderly by others, and thus I might genuflect in the OF where it isn't prescribed or forget to do so in the EF where it is prescribed. And I might make gestures with my hands in the OF's Roman Canon where it is not prescribed and forget in the EF where it is. Oh, well. Aging makes you mellow.
On top of all that I had an EF Baptism. I have celebrated a handful over the years and certainly can see where the OF's rite of Baptism is better in some ways and the EF better in other ways.
In the EF Baptism Rite, here are the deficits, compared to the OF Rite. There is no place for a Scripture reading and brief homily. That is sorely missed and could be easily added and should be. There is no place for the Litany of the Saints and that is sorely missed and could easily be added.
The EF version treats the child as a "pagan" or better yet, "catechumen." Thus the first part of the rite is a "penitential rite" and the priest wears a violet stole over the cassock and surplice or alb. The baby is treated as an adult or having reach the age of reason and all questions are direct to the baby, although the godfather answers on behalf of the infant.
There is a scrutiny/minor exorcism and the priest breathes on the infant's face three times. Then there is a second scrutiny/minor exorcism and then a third exorcism with exorcised salt and then a biggy exorcism after that with the infant renouncing Satan and his works and allurements. Then the baby is anointed with the oil of catechumens.
Finally, the penitential rite is over and the priest leads the child to the baptismal font with the violet stole as the Apostles' creed is said and the Our Father, then the priest changes into a white stole with the cope. and the actual baptism takes place and then the baby by way of the godfather is asked the questions about belief in God, etc.
Then the baby is finally baptized, anointed with sacred chrism, given a white garment and the lighted baptismal candle and then all are dismissed without a final blessing, which I find odd compared to the new rite.
I find it odd, too that there is a lengthy blessing of the salt rather than using already blessed salt and no rite of blessing Holy Water which presumes the Holy Waters is already blessed.
So at my Sunday baptism in the EF Form, Holy Water was used from Holy Water blessed in the OF Form.
Was it a valid baptism?????? I report; you retort.
3 comments:
I'm lying in the road having been run over and likely to die before the ambulance arrives. Fortunately a Catholic priest is on the scene to administer what are loosely called the 'last rites'. I don't need 'a scripture reading and a short homily' - something of an obsession with those who compiled the new ritual books.
Nor, I would suggest, does a newly baptized infant. The removal of the exorcisms in the new rite is a serious omission, an act of unilateral disarmament when the Enemy is in plain sight. But who cares as long as the parents can choose a nice reading and the priest (once again putting himself forward) can utter some platitudes.
I have to disagree with John Nolan's comment about exorcisms. Exorcisms are sacramentals, not sacraments; they are much less powerful and much less important. Yes, sacramentals have their places, but let's not mistake the small for the great. The devil fears baptism (and confession) much more than he fears exorcism.
Anonymous
For the significance of the minor exorcisms in the baptismal rite, see St Thomas Aquinas. And they remained as an integral part of the rite for another seven hundred years. If you are suggesting their removal circa 1970 was a good thing, then feel free to argue your point. But the obvious distinction between sacraments and sacramentals is not relevant to the point I was making.
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