Q: 1. Why do we bless the water again during the Easter season during the Penitential Rite when the water is already blessed?
2. We do the Rite of Welcoming for children to be baptized in place of the Penitential Rite. Do you recommend that we still sing the Gloria instead of going directly to the Opening Prayer? We also Sprinkle, but that seems like A LOT to be happening given welcoming the child and the parents.
Thank you for your ministry and service! Your answers are helpful and references to the answers are just as great!
A: 1. I agree that this seems absurd. The best I can do to explain it is that the liturgy frequently links prayer and action – in this case, blessing and sprinkling. Here’s what I do: I pour last week’s bucket of blessed water into the holy water font and start with a fresh bucket of water at each Sunday mass during Easter Time.
2. When there’s a baptism at mass in Easter Time, I omit the penitential act and the sprinkling. This complies with RBC 29/1. Then as we process from the back to the front, I ask the musicians to sing the Gloria. I think that this complies with RBC 42.
Thanks for your comments on my blog. You probably know this, but I have a lot more on baptism in my book Celebrating Initiation: A Guide for Priests.