Baptisms, renouncing evil - and more

In this New Year, I have baptized six persons, five children and one young man. 

A group of children had been baptized in Dulce Nombre at the end of last year, but one child was sick and so we arranged to have a baptism before Mass on the Epiphany. I really love being able to welcome new members into the Body of Christ, but this baptism was special. I have been working in this parish since a few months after I got here in Honduras, at first on an occasional basis. In the process, I met a fair number of people, including a few young people. One of those was the father of the child I baptized. What a privilege. 

On Wednesday, the pastor was going out to a rural community for Mass and baptisms. I decided to go along, But, as I was leaving Plan Grande, he called me and told me he was stuck in Santa Rosa with the parish car for the sick which needed serious repairs. Could I preside at a Celebration of the Word with Communion and baptized the four children. Of course. It was a good celebration, and I knew a few of the parents. One or two of the kids decided to exercise their vocal cords during the rite. But, even though the parents wanted the children baptized with lots of water, holding them standing in a plastic tub, it went off very well.

Today, at the request of the pastor, I baptized a young man who had been in the catechumenate, starting in 2019. He would have been baptized at the Easter Vigil 2020, except for the pandemic. I met with him on Friday and we talked about the baptism. He, with his mother, his girlfriend, his godparents, and a catechist from his village, arrived before Mass for the rite.

Since he had already participated in the catechumenate rites of welcome and election, the rite was shortened. But I decided that it would be good to use the long form of the renunciations with him. They are found in a ritual book from Mexico that I use. I had used a form of it in a Lenten booklet I prepared when I worked at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Ames, Iowa, but I cannot find my files. So here is a loose translation, which misses some of the nuances of the Spanish, but this may give you an insight into another way of looking at renouncing Satan. 

Do you renounce Satan, that is:

• sin, as a sign of the denial of God;

• evil, as a sign of sin on the world;

 • error, as obscuring the truth;

• violence, a contrary to charity

• egoism, as lack of the testimony of love? 

Do you renounce the works of Satan, which are:

• envy and hatred;

• laziness and indifference;

• cowardice and insecurities;

• sadness and lack of confidence;

• materialism and sensuality;

• injustices and favoritism;

• lack of faith, hope, and love? 

Do you renounce his seductions, which can be:

• thinking oneself the best;

• seeing oneself as superior;

• being overconfident of oneself;

• believing that one is completely converted;

• staying put in the things, means, institutions, methods, rules and no going to God?

Do you renounce believing oneself superior to others, that is, every type of

• abuse;

• discrimination;

• pharisaism, hypocrisy, cynicism;

• pride;

• personal egoism;

 • despising [others]? 

Do you renounce holding back in the face of injustice and the needs of persons and institutions for:

• cowardice;

• laziness;

• comfort;

• personal advantages? 

Do you renounce the materialistic criteria and behaviors which consider:

• money as the supreme ambition for life;

• pleasure above all;

• business as an absolute value;

 • one’s own good above the common good? 

As I prayed this, I kept wondering if this is what we need to use more often as part of our examination of conscience. 

I also wonder if this list might be a good prayer for the US, in these days after the terrorist attacks on the Capitol building. I think so. 

But I wonder how many parishes would dare use these.