Q: Fr. Paul—I know you have a lot on your plate right now (it’s not like you have your own Holy Week coming up), so I am doubly grateful for your help. I’m trying to sort out where the sprinkling rite goes at the Vigil if you are doing the combined rites (Candidates plus Elect), AND having the community (and the Candidates?) renew their baptismal promises when the Elect make their profession of faith and renunciation of sin (no. 49 in the Missal, and repeated in the OCIA book as an option). So three questions:
- If you are only initiating the Elect, both the Missal and the OCIA book place that renewal and sprinkling after confirmation, although the entire thing, renewal of baptismal promises and sprinkling is bracketed as if optional in the OCIA book—so is it actually optional? Or is that to indicate that you may have already done this renewal when the Elect did? In that case, where does the sprinkling rite go? Just do that alone after confirmation?
- If you are combining rites, the OCIA book seems to say that it’s possible the Candidates for full communion, along with community, may make/renew baptismal promises when the Elect do—saying at #580, “When the Rite of Baptism has been completed all stand…and renew the promise of baptismal faith, unless this has already been done together with those to be baptized…The candidates for Reception into full communion join the rest of the community in this Renunciation of Sin and Profession of Faith.” Or is it that the Candidates for full communion make this renunciation and profession at this point in the liturgy on their own if the community did it when the Elect did?
- If it is the option that Candidates renew and renounce with the assembly when the Elect do—what happens to the sprinkling rite?
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A: No worries. These are all important matters.
1. If you have elect but no candidates at the Vigil, and if you are renewing baptismal promises of all immediately after the making of promises at no. 49 in the missal, the sprinkling comes after the confirmations, as suggested in no. 53. The option of having the assembly renew promises before the baptisms does not move the sprinkling—it just moves the promises. The reason it’s in brackets at OCIA 237-240 is that the entire initiation of adults may take place apart from the Easter Vigil in exceptional circumstances. In that case, the Easter renewal of promises does not take place. The revised translation makes this plainer than the first translation did, which presumed that the initiation only took place at the Vigil.
2. OCIA 580 means that the elect renew their promises with the entire community, whether they do it before the baptisms (Missal no. 49) or after the baptisms (Missal no. 55). “together” surely means “immediately after” as indicated in Missal no. 49. OCIA 580 is a creation of the US, and probably should have been clarified.
3. The sprinkling rite takes place after confirmation if the candidates and the community renew their promises at 49. If they wait to renew promises until after the baptisms, then the sprinkling follows the renewal.